GOVS  IN 


AN  THONY  •  AND  •  I  • 


SO/AE-VIEVS  •  OF'  OVRS 


VBOVT'DIVERS  -FOLKS  -AND 


JAR  I  O  VS  •  AS PE C  TS 


cfDo  OF-LIFE  ' 


n 


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COUSIN    ANTHONY 
AND    I 


COUSIN    ANTHONY 
AND    I; 

SOME   VIEWS   OF   OURS 

ABOUT   DIVERS  MATTERS 

AND 

VARIOUS    ASPECTS    OF    LIFE 


BY 

EDWARD    SANDFORD    MARTIN 

AUTHOR  OF  "  A  LITTLE  BROTHER  OF  THE  RICH  " 
AND   "windfalls  OF  OBSERVATION" 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

189s 


Copyright,  1895,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


TROW  DIRECTORY 

PmNTINO  AND  BOOKBINOINQ  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK 


INSCRIBED, 

WITH   AFFECTION  AND   RESPECT, 

TO 

THAT    ADMIRABLE   WOMAN, 

MY    COUSIN    ANTHONY'S    WIFE 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


I.  Cousin  Anthony  and  His  Book    ....      i 
II.  Readers  and  Reading 15 

III.  Work  and  the  Yankee 29 

IV.  Chores 41 

V.  Considerations  Matrimonial 53 

VI.  Love,  Friendship,  and  Gossip      •     •    .     •    73 

VII.  Woman  Suffrage 89 

VIII,  The  Knowledge  of  Good  and  Evil    .     .     .103 

IX.  Civilization  and  Culture 119 

X.  Arcadia  and  Belgravia 137 

XI.  Ourselves  and  Other  People 157 

XII.  Profit  and  Loss 177 

XIII.  Certain  Assets  of  Age 193 

XIV.  The  After-Dinner  Speech 203 

XV.  Cousin  Anthony's  Address  to  the  Trained 

Nurses 213 


* ^  Acknowledgment  is  made  of  the  courtesy  of 
the  proprietors  of  Scribneks  Magazine, 
Harper's  Weekly,  The  North  American 
REViEiy,  and  The  Sun  for  permission  to 
include  in  this  volume  articles  contributed 
to  those  publications. 


I 


COUSIN    ANTHONY    AND 
HIS    BOOK 


COUSIN   ANTHONY 
HIS   BOOK 


AND 


Y  Cousin  Anthony  was  lately 
speaking  of  the  surprised  re- 
spect he  sometimes  felt  for 
himself  because  of  certain 
things  he  had  not  said.  He 
went  a  little  into  details,  and  I  discovered 
that  nearly  all  the  unutterances  that  he 
prided  himself  upon  were  things  that  he 
had  omitted  to  tell  his  wife.       He  felt,  he  Decreet 

reticence  of 

said,  that  not  to  blurt  out  matters  to  the  my  cousin. 
general  public  is  no  particular  credit  to  a 
man,  but  the  inducement  to  tell  one's 
wife  everything  that  would  interest  her  is 
so  strong  that  to  have  restrained  one's  self 
from  the  abuse  of  such  a  privilege  is  fair 
ground  for  humble  self- approbation.  There 
are  things  that  a  conscientious  man  does 
not  feel  authorized  to  admit  even  to  him- 
self.    A  fact  that  is  not  admitted  is  more 


Cousift  Anthony  and  I 


or  less  ineffectual.  It  may  have  a  poten- 
tiality of  mischief  about  it  and  still  be 
harmless  so  long  as  it  is  ignored.  To  know 
something  that  is  disquieting  to  one's  self 
to  know,  and  to  let  it  die  of  neglect,  is 
sane  conduct ;  and  so  it  is  to  know  some- 
thing that  would  worry  one's  wife  and  to 
abstain  from  imparting  it  to  her  because  it 
is  wholly  unnecessary  for  her  to  know  it. 

At  least  that  was  the  view  that  my  cousin 
Anthony  took.  He  maintained  that  to 
confide  absolutely  in  one's  wife  was  indeed 
good,  but  to  temper  candor  on  occasion 
with  a  wise  and  affectionate  reticence  was 
better  still.  He  by  no  means  advocated 
deceit  or  elaborate  concealment.  He  hates 
a  lie  as  much  as  anyone,  and  is  as  eager  as 
Merlin  himself  to  have  vinegar  burned 
when  there  is  a  liar  to  the  windward.  But 
mere  abstention  from  inconsiderate  admis- 
sions he  admired  in  himself. 

I  think  he  is  right.  Confession  may  be 
good  for  the  soul,  but  a  Protestant  who  em- 
ploys no  professional  confessor  is  bound  to 
consider  how  his  outpourings  will  affect  the 
ear  they  enter.     Let  him  steer  them  into 

4 


Cousin  Anthony  and  His  Book 

an  ear  that  they  are  sure  to  pass  through, 
and  not  into  one  where  they  may  stick  and 
rankle. 

Anthony  sa}'s  that  he  never  descants  to 
his  wife  about  any  callow  preliminary  affair 
of  the  heart  that  he  was  ever  involved  in. 
She  had  shown,  he  said,  a  benevolent  will- 
ingness to  hear  and  sympathize  with  his 
experiences  of  that  sort ;  but  though  not 
to  tell  her  involved  the  suppression  of  some 
of  the  most  interesting  tales  he  knew,  some 
saving  grace  of  marital  circumspection  had 
achieved  the  suppression.  What  biographi- 
cal details  of  that  sort  came  to  her  from 
other  authorities  than  himself  gave  him  not 
the  slightest  concern.  There  was  a  wide 
distinction,  according  to  his  notion,  be- 
tween the  information  that  she  took  the 
responsibility  of  acquiring  and  that  which 
he  took  the  responsibility  of  forcing  upon 
her  attention. 

Another  class  of  information  that  he  sys- 
tematically omits  to  share  with  her  includes 
all  gossip  which  comes  to  his  ears  that  is 
derogatory  to  her  own  family.  As  he 
thinks  it  unwise   to  tell  her   things    that 

5 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


might  make  her  think  less  of  him,  so  he 
omits  information  that  might  make  her 
think  less  of  herself.  He  told  me  a  tale 
about  his  wife's  uncle,  Philip  Hiram,  that 
was  really  of  the  liveliest  interest  even  to  a 
stranger.  But  he  said  he  had  never  told  it 
to  his  wife,  because  it  would  mortify  her  to 
know  it,  and  as  no  one  but  himself  would 
dare  tell  her,  the  chances  were  that  she 
would  never  hear  it. 

'  Anthony  does  not  think  himself  a  sly 
dog  for  not  telling  everything  to  Mrs.  An- 
thony. To  his  mind  his  reticence  shows 
not  his  doubts  of  his  wife's  discretion  or 
regard,  but  his  sedulous  regard  for  her  hap- 
piness and  the  high  value  he  places  on  her 
affection.  Those  are  things  of  too  much 
importance  to  put  to  hazard  by  impulsive 
revelations.  He  is  really  exceptionally 
frank  in  his  ordinary  communications,  and 
to  know  anything  that  is  worth  telling  and 
not  to  tell  it  is  a  sort  of  self-sacrifice  that 
no  one  who  knows  him  would  expect  of 
him.  Least  of  all  did  he  expect  it  of  him- 
self. He  simply  found  that  there  were  a 
few  things  that  he  was  periodically  tempted 
6 


Cousin  Anthony  and  His  Book 

to  tell,  and  didn't   tell,   and   was  always 
surprised  afterward  that  he  hadn't. 

But  Anthony  is  not  so  marvellously  dis- 
creet about  everything.  Without  being 
morbid  he  is  one  of  those  introspective 
creatures  who  sort  out  their  own  blemishes 
and  misdemeanors  and  repent  of  them  after 
they  are  all  good  and  done.  He  writes  as 
well  as  talks,  and  perhaps  he  has  less  occa- 
sion to  felicitate  himself  on  what  he  has 
left  unwritten  than  on  the  things  he  has  not 
said.  It  happens  that  way  sometimes,  that 
men  who  are  the  carefuUest  and  most  conti- 
nent in  their  talk  are  subject  to  extraor- 
dinary bursts  of  candor  with  a  pen  and  ink. 
But  as  I  said  Anthony  writes  things,  and 
had  the  felicity,  not  a  great  while  since,  to 
compose  a  book  which  so  stirred  the  be-  wrote. 
nevolence  of  his  friends  that  he  has  com- 
plained to  me  of  the  embarrassment  their 
praises  have  car.sed  him.  He  declares  that 
if  the  book  were  really  very  much  of  a  book 
he  wouldn't  mind  its  being  praised,  but 
being  merely  such  a  book  as  he  knows  it 
is,  and  containing  only  such  things  as  he 
managed  to  get  into  it,  the  assurances  that 

7 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


he  gets  of  its  merits  make  him  feel  hke  a 
receiver  of  stolen  goods,  and  seem  to  him 
a  design  of  the.  Arch  Enemy  to  bring  him 
low.  If  he  didn't  like  it,  he  says,  he  would 
be  less  disturbed  ;  but  there  is  evidence 
that  his  receivership  is  all  too  agreeable  to 
him. 

I  have  tried  to  console  him  as  far  as  I 
could,  pointing  out  to  him  that  in  every 
enterprise  one  is  bound  to  take  the  evil 
with  the  good,  and  that  if  the  book  is  good 
enough  to  praise  it  may  be  good  enough  to 
sell.  Furthermore,  I  have  suggested  to 
him  that  his  excessive  aspiration  after  hu- 
mility is  itself  a  symptom  of  spiritual  pride, 
and  that  it  may  really  be  wiser  to  let  his 
poor  head  swell  and  cure  itself  by  natural 
processes  than  to  worry  unduly  over  it 
and  try  to  keep  it  down  by  artificial  means. 
A  good  many  people,  I  tell  him,  have  time 
on  their  hands  in  these  days,  and  some  one 
will  find  leisure  presently  to  read  his  poor 
book  through,  and  find  out  how  little,  after 
all,  there  is  in  it.  The  cure  in  such  cases 
often  comes  that  way.  Besides,  I  have 
pointed  out  to  him,  what  he  should  have 
8 


Cousin  Anthony  and  His  Book 

known  himself,  that  it  is  a  great  mistake  to 
suppose  that  there  is  nothing  in  a  book  ex- 
cept what  the  writer  puts  there.  There  is 
something  at  Rome,  but  the  more  impor- 
tant part  is  what  you  take  there  ;  and  what 
the  reader  is  able  to  get  out  of  any  book 
depends  very  considerably,  of  course,  up- 
on what  he  brings  to  it.  If  one  is  long  of 
steel  it  is  great  luck  to  run  across  a  bed  of 
flints,  but  there  is  no  occasion  for  the  steel 
to  assume  all  the  responsibility  for  the  re- 
sulting sparks. 

I  think  I  will  read  cousin  Anthony's  book 
myself,  presently,  and  see  if  there  is  really 
any  good  in  it.  There  may  be.  The  fact 
that  his  friends  praise  it  is  not  proof  that 
there  is,  but  neither  is  it  proof  to  the  con- 
trary. But,  as  I  told  him,  even  if  it  is  good 
it  is  nothing  to  be  so  swollen  over.  If  a 
boy  can  fly  a  kite,  it  is  a  good  sport.  Let 
him  practise  it  and  take  pleasure  in  it.  But 
it  is  the  wind  that  does  the  work,  not  he; 
moreover,  it  is  the  kite  that  flies  and  not  the 
boy,  so  that  for  him  to  imagine  himself 
afloat,  and  impart  Aving-movements  to  his 
members,  is  an  absurdity  of  self-deception. 

9 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


Let  the  kite  be  puffed  up,  but  not  the  boy. 
"  So  let  your  book,"  I  said,  "  my  cousin, 
be  borne  on  by  any  lucky  gale  of  approba- 
tion that  may  come  its  way  ;  without  dis- 
paragement of  which,  be  you  content  to 
hold  the  string  and  run  with  it  when  nec- 
essary. That  is  the  business  of  a  writer, 
not  to  fly  himself,  but  to  send  up  good 
kites,  and  make  the  wind  carry  them.  If 
anyone  have  the  faculty  to  recognize  a 
certain  measure  of  truth  and  so  to  work  it 
up  that  it  will  go,  and  that  others  may 
know  it  when  they  see  it,  let  him  do  so,  for 
it  is  a  good  thing.  But  as  for  being  per- 
sonally inflated  about  it,  that  is  folly,  for  it 
is  not  the  writer  who  is  glorious,  but  the 
truth,  and  truth  was  there  before  he  found 
it." 

I  WONDER  if  persons  who  can  write  Scotch 
are  sufficiently  aware  of  the  great  literary 
The  great  advantage  they  have  over  writers  who  are 
vantage"  not  bom  to  that  ability.  It  is  no  credit 
to  them  that  they  can  do  it.  It  is  a  gift 
of  nature  dropt  in  their  lap.  I  never  heard 
of  anyone  who  learned  by  artificial  means  to 


Cousin  Anthony  and  His  Book 

write  Scotch.  Scotch  writers  do  it,  and 
no  one  else.  It  has  long  been  obvious  that 
the  proportion  of  good  writers  to  the  whole 
Scotch  population  was  exceedingly  large ; 
but  I  do  not  remember  that  it  has  ever 
been  pointed  out  how  much  easier  it  is 
for  a  Scotchman  to  be  a  good  writer  than 
another  because  of  his  innate  command  of 
the  Scotch  tongue. 

There  are  such  delightful  words  in  that 
language  ;  words  that  sing  on  the  printed 
page  wherever  their  employer  happens  to 
drop  them  in  ;  words  that  rustle;  words 
that  skirl,  and  words  that  clash  and  thump. 
It  is  their  gain,  I  believe,  that  not  many 
of  us  who  know  the  sounds  of  them  have 
an  accurate  notion  of  their  meanings.  Do 
you  know  what  a  brae  is  ?  After  thirty 
years  of  familiarity  with  that  word  I  am 
still  a  little  dubious  about  it  and  cannot  be 
sure  whether  the  idea  it  conveys  contains 
underbrush  or  is  open  field,  and  if  the 
latter,  whether  there  is  an  implication  of 
heather.  Perhaps  sheep  graze  on  braes.  I 
could  not  be  sure,  and  if  a  well-informed 
person  insisted  that  Scotch  nosegays  had 
II 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


braes  in  them  I  could  not  contradict  him 
with  much  confidence.     But  for  all  that 

Ye  banks  and  braes  o'  Bonny  Doon 

conveys  an  image  as  delightful  to  my 
mind's  eye  as  to  the  actual  ear,  and  what 
imcertainty  there  may  be  about  the  di- 
mensions and  ingredients  of  the  braes  in 
it  merely  operates  to  give  the  imagination 
greater  scope.  I  can  aver  that  at  least  one 
habitual  reader  of  English  finds  his  atten- 
tion curiously  and  agreeably  quickened  by 
Scotch  words  and  idioms  that  are  famiHar 
enough  not  to  be  troublesome,  and  unfamil- 
iar enough  to  give  the  ear  a  gentle  fiUip.  A 
brook  sparkles  brighter  for  the  moment 
for  being  a  burn;  "gone  gyte  "  makes  a 
prompter  conveyance  of  its  significance  than 
* '  gone  crazy ; ' '  brogues  and  lugs  and  bairns 
fit  better  into  many  sentences  than  shoes  and 
"scotch**^  ears  and  children.  "A  wheen  blethers" 
fills  the  mouth  like  a  spoonful  of  oatmeal ; 
"twine"  is  a  better  word  than  "sepa- 
rate ;  "  "  will  can  "  beats  "  will  be  able," 
and  the  verb  to  ken  in  all  its  uses  is  fit  to 


Cousin  Anthony  and  His  Book 

stir  the  envy  of  the  English  writer.  A 
French  word  dragged  into  English  writing 
is  an  offence  which  is  only  tolerable  when 
a  master-hand  commits  it  and  the  excuse 
is  adequate,  but  the  Scotch  words  of  Scotch- 
men vary  the  tongue  that  harbors  them 
only  to  enrich  it,  and  stand  among  their 
English  cousins  with  all  the  confiding  as- 
surance of  blood  relations. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  Scotch  writers, 
and  especially  the  story-tellers,  appreciate 
with  due  humility  the  advantage  they  en- 
joy in  having  unrestricted  use  of  as  much 
English  as  they  can  handle,  and  in  addition 
a  monopoly  of  their  own  blessed  brogue. 
There  is  scant  justice  in  the  dispensation 
that  secures  them  their  special  privilege. 
They  do  not  need  it,  for  many  of  them 
write  just  as  good  English  as  even  the 
Americans  do,  and  are  perfectly  at  home 
in  that  language.  There  is  no  true  pro- 
priety in  granting  them  special  rights  to 
write  Scotch  and  English  with  the  same  pen 
on  the  same  page  ;  but  on  grounds  of  ex- 
pediency, and  because  the  mixture  makes 
good  reading,  they  have  been  suffered  to 

13 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


do  so.  I  am  not  one  of  those  who  would 
abridge  their  privilege,  for  I  like  its  re-- 
suits  ;  but  I  do  think  that  in  consideration 
of  their  advantages  Scotch  writers  should 
be  humble,  should  make  allowances  for 
other  scribes,  and  in  all  literary  competi- 
tions should  be  handicapped  down  to  an 
equality  with  the  writers  in  whose  field 
they  compete. 


14 


II 

READERS  AND  READING 


READERS  AND   READING 

fERSONS  who  not  being,  like 
my  cousin  Anthony,  already 
in  the  business  of  writing  are 
tempted  to  dabble  in  it,  should 
consider,  among  other  objec- 
tions to  such  a  course,  the  great  detriment 
it  may  prove  to  their  usefulness,  and  pos- 
sibly ako  to  their  enjoyment  as  readers. 
To  be  a  good  reader  is  a  vocation  by  itself,  a  dtsabiiuy 
and  one  which  writers  habitually  and  en- 
viously admire.  That  the  business  of  writ- 
ing conflicts  with  it  is  notorious.  AVhen 
the  library  of  the  late  Guy  de  Maupassant 
came  to  be  examined  by  his  executors  it 
was  found  that  almost  all  the  modern  books 
in  it  were  gifts  from  the  authors  of  them, 
and  that  their  leaves  were  in  almost  every 
instance  uncut.  Writers  do  read  books  oc- 
casionally, and  even  books  by  other  con- 
temporary  writers,  but  they  usually  read 

17 


0/  writers. 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


them  either  for  a  special  purpose,  as  to 
make  a  review,  or  with  the  general  purpose 
to  keep  informed  about  what  is  being  writ- 
ten, or  with  a  certain  feverish  anxiety  to 
make  sure  that  someone  else  is  not  doing 
their  kind  of  work  better  than  they  can  do 
it  themselves.  Find  a  contemporary  writer, 
if  you  can,  who  does  not  look  back  with 
regret  to  the  time  when  the  reading  of 
books  was  an  irresponsible  felicity.  He 
read  "  Ivanhoe"  and  "The  Tale  of  Two 
Cities  "  with  simple  happiness  and  no  sense 
of  obligation  to  dissect  the  authors'  art  or 
arrive  at  his  own  critical  opinions.  But 
nowadays  when  he  reads  it  is  with  a  bal- 
ance in  one  hand,  and  constant  interrup- 
tions while  the  actual  book  goes  into  one 
scale  and  his  notion  of  what  it  ought  to 
be,  or  his  recollection  of  some  book  some- 
one else  has  written,  into  the  other.  To 
read  books  simply  for  what  there  is  in  them, 
and  with  no  conscious  regard  for  what 
one's  verdict  will  be  when  the  reading  is 
over,  that  may  be  reckoned  one  of  the  joys 
of  youth.  But  it  is  not  strictly  a  joy  that 
belongs  to  youth  only,  for  some  grown  peo- 
i8 


Readers  and  Heading 


pie  have  it  too ;  but  not  (or  at  least  very 
rarely)  if  they  are  writers.  The  spectacle 
of  the  blithe  maiden  in  a  brand-new  ball- 
dress  is  a  jocund  sight,  even  to  a  dress- 
maker. But  the  dressmaker  does  not  take 
the  same  unimpeded  delight  in  it  that  it 
brings  to  the  other  spectators.  Inevitably 
and  unconsciously  she  counts  the  stitches, 
reckons  the  cost  of  the  fabric,  measures  off 
in  her  mind  the  yards  of  lace,  and  ap- 
praises the  quality  of  the  trimmings  ;  then 
she  compares  it  mentally  with  other  fine 
frocks,  and  when  she  has  finished  she  knows 
far  more  about  the  gown  than  anyone  who 
has  seen  it  except  the  society  reporter. 
But  there  is  a  quality  in  the  pretty  show 
that  her  scrutiny  has  missed  and  an  emo- 
tion she  has  not  gathered  because  her 
trained  sight  saw  so  much. 

Everyone  who  has  ever  launched  a  book 
which  has  drifted  in  even  a  moderate  de- 
gree into  the  current  of  public  favor  must 
remember  how  overwhelming  a  proportion 
of  whatever  subsequent  satisfaction  he  got 
from  it  was  due  to  that  simple,  old-fash- 
ioned, uncritical  personage,  the  gentle  read- 

19 


Cousin  Afitbony  and  I 


er,  who  reads  books  for  the  promotion  of 
his  own  happiness,  and  if  he  likes  them 
knows  it  and  is  cheerfully  ready  to  say  so. 
For  the  faults  or  shortcomings  of  a  book 
The  gentle    the  gentle  reader  doesn't  much  care  if  only 

reader.  °  ■' 

there  is  a  grace  in  it  somewhere  to  which 
his  soul  responds.  If  it  is  verse,  it  does  not 
concern  him  that  Tennyson  wrote  better  ; 
if  it  is  a  story  he  does  not  throw  it  down  be- 
cause it  is  not  the  equal  of  "Vanity  Fair." 
If  it  gives  him  real  pleasure,  in  sufficient 
quantity  to  pay  for  the  time  he  spent  in 
reading  it,  he  declares  that  it  is  a  good 
book  and  is  ready  to  thank  the  author  and 
buy  and  read  the  next  book  that  he  sends 
out.  He,  or  perhaps  I  should  say  she,  is 
the  reader  that  the  author  loves  and  es- 
teems and  counts  upon  to  quiet  his  own 
literary  compunctions.  But  the  reader  who 
has  himself  dabbled  much  in  writing  can 
seldom  be  a  gentle  reader  afterward.  He 
is  always  a  critic,  mistrusting  his  own  pleas- 
ure and  his  fellow's  art ;  hesitating  to  ex- 
press his  possible  favor  for  fear  it  will  dis- 
credit his  own  discrimination,  more  eager  to 
make  a  clever  comment  of  his  own  than  to 
20 


Readers  and  Reading 


find  a  pearl  of  someone  else's  thought.  He 
has  some  knowledge  of  good  and  evil  which 
the  gentle  reader  lacks,  but  it  is  dearly 
bought,  as  perhaps  all  knowledge  must  be. 
To  be  sure,  a  good  critic  is  a  useful  creat- 
ure in  his  way,  but  it  is  a  very  good  critic 
indeed  in  the  making  of  whom  it  is  worth 
while  that  a  gentle  reader  should  be  spoiled. 
Happily,  in  spite  of  the  current  epi- 
demic of  authorship,  the  gentle  reader  still 
seems  to  abound  and  to  read  books  with 
uncorrupted  faculties.  A  year  or  two  ago 
a  Boston  newspaper  of  high  literary  respon- 
sibility chronicled  the  death  of  Mrs.  So-and- 
so,  "the  distinguished  author."  It  gave 
a  sketch  of  her  life  and  a  list  of  her  prin- 
cipal books.  There  were  a  baker's  dozen 
of  them,  and  an  ink-bedabbled  reader  who 
ran  his  eye  down  the  list  failed  to  recog- 
nize a  single  title  that  he  had  ever  heard  of 
before.  But  the  gentle  reader  must  have 
read  those  books  and  approved  them  with 
his  catholic  kindness,  else  so  many  of  them 
had  never  lived  in  print,  and  the  good 
author  had  gone  with  a  soul  far  less  re- 
lieved to  her  honorable  rest. 

21 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


It  is  surprising  Avhat  readers,  gentle  and 
otherwise,  are  expected  to  accomplish,  and 
do  accomplish  after  a  fashion,  nowadays. 
No  wonder  it  should  be  thought  and  of- 
ten remarked  that  the  contemporary  reader 
Bad  case  of  is  in  pretty  deep  waters,  and   that  doubts 

the  con-  r  j  tr  ^ 

temporary  should  bc  now  and  then  expressed  as  to  his 
ability  to  keep  his  head  above  them.  A 
century  ago  there  was  a  little  library  of 
classics  that  he  read  at  more  or  less,  and  if 
he  could  lay  hands  on  a  weekly  newspaper 
he  read  that  too.  Two  generations  ago 
he  was  taking  a  daily  paper,  and  perhaps 
an  eclectic  magazine  made  up  from  the 
British  monthlies.  The  civil  war  upset  his 
habits  and  set  him  to  reading  all  the  news- 
papers he  could  afford  to  buy,  and  weekly 
picture -papers  and  a  monthly  magazine  be- 
sides. The  cheapening  of  the  cost  of  white 
paper  and  the  lowering  of  the  price  of 
"news"  has  confirmed  him  in  the  habits 
he  learned  then.  Such  an  amount  of  read- 
ing is  offered  him  now  for  two  cents  that 
he  feels  that  he  cannot  afford  to  take  in  less 
than  two  or  three  newspapers,  and  the  mag- 
azines are  so  cheap  and  so  admirable  that 


Readers  and  Readhig 


he  must  read  one  or  two  of  them  every 
month.  And  all  the  time  books  keep  tum- 
bling out  from  the  presses  faster  than  ever, 
and,  of  course,  a  man  who  thinks  that  he 
has  a  mind  is  bound  to  feed  it  part  of  the 
time  on  books.  No  wonder  that  the  con- 
temporary reader  is  embarrassed,  and  com- 
plains that  he  cannot  keep  up,  and  wants 
to  know  what  to  do  about  it. 

There  is  nothing  more  serious  really  the 
matter  than  that  the  conditions  under 
which  he  is  struggling  are  novel,  and  that 
he  has  not  yet  adapted  himself  to  their  re- 
quirements. In  primitive  times  when  men 
wandered  about  in  the  woods  and  roosted 
in  trees  at  night,  they  ate  what  they  could 
find  wherever  and  whenever  they  found  it. 
As  food  grew  more  plentiful  they  only  ate 
when  they  were  hungry,  and  gradually  they 
got  the  habit  of  being  hungry  at  stated  in- 
tervals. Then  as  the  variety  of  victuals  in- 
creased they  developed  the  civilized  prac- 
tice of  using  certain  kinds  of  food  for 
particular  meals,  and  came  gradually  to 
the  sophisticated  method  of  having  things 
served  by  courses,  and  varying  their  diet 

23 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


according  to  the  hour  of  the  day  and  the 
state  of  the  market.  No  civihzed  New 
Yorker  complains  because  there  are  more 
kinds  of  fish  in  Fulton  Market  than  his  pal- 
ate can  test  or  his  stomach  accommodate. 
If  he  has  smelts  for  his  breakfast  and  sal- 
mon after  his  soup  at  dinner,  he  is  thankful 
and  tries  not  to  eat  o\"ermuch  of  either  of 
them.  He  must  teach  himself  to  take  his 
literature  in  the  same  enlightened  manner, 
reading  according  to  his  appetite  and  his 
necessities,  as  he  would  eat ;  not  gorging 
himself  because  the  market  is  generous; 
not  eating  a  pie  for  breakfast  nor  beginning 
his  dinner  with  coffee,  but  taking  things  as 
they  ought  to  come. 

And  especially,  if  he  is  an  intelligent 
man  and  wants  to  make  the  most  of  his  day, 
he  must  read  his  newspapers  with  intelli- 
gence, doing  it  quickly  while  his  mind  is 
fresh,  wresting  the  news  out  of  them  like 
the  meat  from  a  nutshell,  and  discarding 
the  rest.  It  is  easy  for  him,  if  he  allows 
himself  to  do  so,  to  read  the  newspapers 
and  nothing  else,  just  as  it  is  a  simple  mat- 
ter to  support  life  on  hog  and  hominy. 
24 


Readers  and  Reading 


But  if  he  is  going  to  read  to  the  best  pur- 
pose he  must  have  a  system  about  his  read- 
ing analogous  to  that  which  regulates  his 
diet.  If  he  reads  the  newspapers  as  he 
ought  to  read  them,  and  does  not  spend  his 
eyes  on  "  miscellany  "  and  spun-out  gossip, 
he  will  have  time  to  get  through  them  and 
keep  the  run  of  the  magazines  besides.  If 
he  reads  the  best  of  what  is  in  the  maga- 
zines he  will  read  most  of  the  best  new  fic- 
tion before  it  gets  between  covers,  and  will 
supplement  usefully  the  current  informa- 
tion that  he  gets  from  the  newspapers.  If 
he  reads  in  the  magazines  only  what  appeals 
to  him,  he  will  still  have  time  every  day  to 
read  something  in  a  book  ;  and  if  he  makes 
a  point  of  reading  something,  however 
little,  every  day  in  a  book  that  is  worth 
reading,  his  library  will  be  bound  to  pay 
him  high  interest  on  its  value. 

Above  all  things  the  modem  must  adapt 
his  reading,  in  bulk  and  quality,  to  his 
personal  circumstances  and  individual 
wants.  The  very  multitude  of  new  books 
destroys  the  obligation  to  read  many  of 
them.     There  is  nothing  any  longer  except 

25 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


the  Bible  and  Shakespeare  that  the  contem- 
porary American  need  blush  not  to  know. 
If  he  has  intelligence  and  reasonable  culture 
the  presumption  will  be  that  if  he  has  not 
read  this  it  was  because  he  was  busy  read- 
ing that,  or  was  more  profitably  occupied 
than  in  reading  either.  Books  are  not 
much  of  a  bugaboo  in  these  days — there 
are  too  many  of  them.  We  look  more  and 
more  to  results  and  boggle  less  and  less 
about  processes.  If  so  be  the  mind  is  alert 
and  discriminating,  and  can  choose  what 
is  good,  and  grasp  it  wherever  he  finds  it, 
there  is  no  vain  questioning  as  to  the  par- 
ticular books  on  which  it  gained  its  edge. 

There  is  a  good  old  saw  about  judging 
a  man  by  the  company  he  keeps,  and  as 
saws  go  it  is  pretty  sound  doctrine.  Judge 
a  man  if  you  will  by  his  companions, 
taking  due  notice  as  to  how  far  he  gives 
himself  up  to  them,  and  how  much  they 
mean  to  him  ;  for  of  course  there  are  men 
and  men,  and  some  men  catch  the  tone  of 
their  associates  and  others  give  tone  to 
them.  Books  are  companions  to  many  of 
us  men  and  women,  but  if  you  undertake 
26 


Readers  and  Reading 


to  judge  us  by  the  books  we  read  you  will 
have  occasion  to  use  your  best  discretion. 
People  take  their  books  so  differently. 
Some  of  us  do  not  exercise  our  minds 
enough  in  our  daily  toil,  and  we  like  when 
we  read  to  read  books  substantial  enough 
to  sharpen  our  faculties.  Others  of  us 
come  home  with  tired  wits  and  want  easy 
books  that  will  rest  and  amuse  us.  Two 
people  may  read  the  same  novel  with  equal 
pleasure,  yet  if  one  reads  it  after  breakfast 
and  the  other  after  dinner,  the  fact  that  it 
amused  them  both  does  not  tell  the  same 
story  about  the  quality  of  their  minds. 
If  the  book  which  you  read  when  you  are 
tired  is  strong  enough  food  for  my  mind 
when  its  energies  are  fresh,  it  must  mean 
that  your  mind  and  my  mind  lack  a  good 
deal  of  being  mates. 

And  besides,  there  are  people  to  whom 
it  comes  natural  to  read,  and  there  are 
others,  even  in  these  days  of  newspapers 
and  schools,  to  whom  reading  comes  hard. 
I  have  seen,  as  most  of  us  have,  so  many 
thoroughly  worthless  persons  who  were 
great  readers,  that  when  I  meet  a  thor- 
27 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


oughly  worthy  and  intelligent  person  who 
doesn't  read,  it  fills  me  with  admiration 
and  respect.  I  do  meet  such  persons  now 
and  then.  They  are  apt  to  be  quick  and 
accurate  observers,  good  talkers,  people  of 
action.  Of  course  they  do  read  a  little 
something  every  day,  the  newspaper  if 
nothing  mor^,  but  reading  is  not  a  neces- 
sity to  them.  They  don't  count  on  it  as 
an  amusement  or  depend  upon  it  as  an 
exercise  of  the  mind.  To  the  habitual 
reader,  reading  becomes  as  necessary  as 
alcohol  to  the  dram-drinker.  It  doesn't 
seem  to  make  any  violent  amount  of  differ- 
ence what  he  reads,  but  he  must  sit  in  a 
chair  a  certain  length  of  time  every  day 
and  rest  his  eyes  and  his  mind  on  a  printed 
page.  You  can  no  more  judge  such  a  per- 
son by  the  book-company  he  keeps  than 
you  can  judge  a  lunatic  by  the  qualities  of 
his  keepers.  His  reading  is  habit.  It  never 
turns  to  energy ;  never  influences  action. 
He  sleeps  better  after  it ;  that  is  all. 


28 


Ill 

WORK  AND  THE  YANKEE 


WORK  AND  THE  YANKEE 

T  is  rumored  that  ammonia  has 
been  trained  to  haul  street- 
cars, and  promises  to  prove 
strong,  docile,  and  cheap,  not 
afraid  of  the  cars,  and  able 
to  run  up  hill  without  getting  out  of  breath. 
Even  in  a  decade  so  prolific  of  tractorian 
movements  as  the  present  one,  this  is  a 
development  that  is  not  to  be  sneezed  at. 
I  suppose  it  is  another  bit  of  Yankee  enter- 
prise. 

The  Yankee's  antipathy  to  work  has 
never  yet  been  adequately  appreciated. 
He  takes  to  it  so  effectively  that  you  might 
think  him  a  Rollo  sort  of  person  who  does 
it  for  his  play.  But  not  so.  He  is  in  a 
state  of  perpetual  insurrection  against  the 
primal  curse.  He  feels  that  he  was  born  to 
sit  on  the  fence  and  whittle  in  the  sun- 
shine,  and  he  is  against   every   apparent 

31 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


necessity  that  would  compel  him  to  forego 
the  serene  pleasures  of  a  purely  contempla- 
tive existence.  He  recognizes,  to  be  sure, 
that  work  has  got  to  be  done.  No  one  has 
a  more  vivid  realization  of  that.  But  the 
consciousness  of  the  need  of  getting  things 
done  does  not  impel  him  to  take  his  coat 
off  and  do  them,  so  much  as  to  contrive 
some  way  of  accomplishing  ends  without 
working.  The  crudest,  simplest  way  of  do- 
ing that  is  to  get  rich  enough  to  hire  labor. 
Accordingly,  the  Yankee  does  try  to  get 
rich,  and  does  not  try  in  vain.  It  is  not 
that  he  loves  money  so  much,  and  desires 
to  possess  it,  as  that  he  loves  labor  so  little. 
But  to  get  rich  is  only  an  indirect  way  of 
beating  the  tyrant.  The  Yankee  would 
rather  abolish  work  than  elude  it.  If  he 
can  get  it  done  without  human  interven- 
tion at  all,  he  likes  that  best ;  and  if  he 
cannot  wholly  eliminate  human  interven- 
tion, he  wants  to  reduce  it  to  its  lowest 
possible  limit.  When  he  gets  matters  fixed 
so  that  the  work  is  done  with  very  little  in- 
termeddling, he  is  willing  to  sit  by  and  su- 
pervise the  process.     He  will  pull  a  lever 

32 


IVork  ami  the  Yankee 


and  turn  a  cock  now  and  then  without 
much  complaint,  if  so  be  that  he  can  rumi- 
nate and  whittle  between  times.  It  is  not 
that  he  is  lazy.  His  name  is  a  synonyme 
for  energy  and  perseverance.  But  to  make 
things  work  together  for  the  automatic  ac- 
complishment of  labor,  and  to  sit  by  and 
see  that  they  work  right — that  is  the  Yan- 
kee idea  of  the  mission  of  man. 

It  is  the  right  idea ;  perhaps  even  the 
highest  idea  that  there  is  on  the  subject. 
Omnipotence,  according  to  the  reverent 
conception  of  some  of  the  wisest  philoso- 
phers, is  not  so  much  the  ability  to  do  all 
things,  as  to  compel  a  spontaneous  perform- 
ance of  allotted  duties  by  all  creation.  So 
it  may  fairly  be  argued  that  it  is  not  the 
Yankee's  perversity  but  the  divine  spark  in 
him  that  is  at  the  bottom  of  his  desire  to 
make  nature  toil  while  he  looks  on.  Of 
the  propensity  toward  contemplation  he  has 
no  monopoly.  The  seers  of  all  times  have 
shared  that.  It  has  peopled  monasteries 
and  convents,  and  enthusiastic  Buddhists 
have  been  used  these  many  centuries  to  give 
up  all  their  time  to  it.     But  it  is  the  dis- 

3Z 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


tinction  of  the  Yankee,  admirably  illustrated 
in  the  case  of  Lincoln,  to  combine  the  con- 
templative disposition  with  an  acute  sense  of 
responsibility  for  the  proper  conduct  of  af- 
fairs. He  insists  upon  having  time  to  think, 
but  he  also  insists  that  the  work  shall  go  on 
while  he  is  thinking.  It  would  not  suit 
him  merely  to  sit  under  a  bo-tree  and  con- 
centrate his  mind  on  his  own  corporeal 
centre,  nor  yet  to  vegetate  in  a  monastery. 
That  would  seem  to  him  an  evasion  of  re- 
sponsibility. What  he  does  do  is  to  build 
a  machine  that  will  do  his  work  while  he 
sits  by  and  watches  it. 

I  wonder  sometimes  that  with  his  inter- 
mixture of  the  meditative  and  the  practical 
he  has  not  made  greater  progress  in  devel- 
opi?ig  the  possibilities  of  prayer.  Prayer 
might  be  loosely  defined  as  one  method 
of  getting  some  things  done  without 
actually  doing  them,  and  in  that  aspect 
of  it  it  might  be  expected  to  appeal  to 
the  Yankee.  No  doubt  it  does  appeal  to 
him,  but  he  seems  to  have  made  no  greater 
progress  with  it  than  his  predecessors  on 
earth  in  other  climes  and  ages.     Consider- 

34 


JVorh  atid  the  Yankee 


ing  how  long  prayer  has  been  in  use  in  the  Somepp^ 
world  and  how  much  human  energy  it  has  %'aye" 
engrossed,  it  seems  a  remarkable  thing  that 
there  should  continue  to  be  such  uncertain- 
ty about  its  effects.  When  a  boy  throws  a 
ball  over  a  wall,  he  cannot  tell  precisely 
where  it  is  going  to  land,  but  he  is  sure  it 
went  over  and  that  it  will  hit  something. 
When  a  doctor  gives  medicine  he  cannot 
be  certain  of  its  effect  until  the  patient 
has  shown  it,  and  he  cannot  always  be  sure 
then ;  nevertheless  he  knows  the  medicine 
was  an  actual  force  and  that  it  did  some- 
thing, though  other  forces  may  have  neutral- 
ized its  action.  But  when  a  man  of  aver- 
age sentiments  pra}'s  he  is  not  sure  whether 
or  not  anything  has  gone  out  from  him 
which  has  had  any  effect  outside  of  his  own 
range  of  perception.  He  is  sure  that  his 
own  mind  has  worked  in  a  certain  manner. 
If  other  persons  have  heard  him  pray,  he 
may  be  convinced  that  his  uttered  senti- 
ments have  affected  their  minds,  but  be- 
yond that  everything  is  foggy  and  uncer- 
tain. 

That  is  an  unsatisfactory  state  of  things, 

35 


Cousin  Anthony  ami  I 


with  which  prayerful  persons  ought  not  to 
be  satisfied.  If  prayer  is  worth  using  at 
all,  and  great  numbers  of  intelligent  peo- 
ple are  convinced  that  it  is,  it  is  worth 
using  with  the  utmost  intelligence  and  the 
highest  attainable  skill.  The  kind  of 
prayer  in  which  the  petitioner  asks  for 
everything  he  can  think  of,  in  the  hope 
that  some  of  his  supplications  may  reach 
the  mark,  is  as  much  out  of  date  as  those 
doses  affected  by  doctors  of  the  last  genera- 
tion, in  which  a  lot  of  drugs  were  mixed, 
not  for  their  combined  effect,  but  in  the 
hope  that  the  right  one  might  be  among 
them,  and  might  find  its  way  to  the  right 
spot  in  the  patient.  Perhaps  clumsy  doc- 
tors do  that  way  still.  Not  so  the  masters 
of  medicine.  Their  diagnoses  make  plain 
to  them  what  they  want  to  do ;  then,  if 
they  use  a  drug  at  all,  it  is  sent  to  accom- 
plish that  particular  purpose.  So,  in  this 
enlightened  generation,  the  prayers  of  the 
great  prayer-masters  should  be  rifle-shots 
sent  by  an  understood  force  at  an  ascer- 
tained mark.  Whether  they  hit  or  miss 
should  depend  upon  comprehensible  con- 

36 


IVork  and  the  Yankee 


ditions.  If  a  savage  fires  at  the  moon 
with  a  rifle,  he  may  be  surprised  at  not  hit- 
ing  it ;  but  a  man  who  understands  about 
rifles  is  not  surprised.  He  knows  what 
may  be  expected  of  them.  So  it  should 
be  possible  to  understand  prayer. 

There  are  forces  of  nature  which  used  to 
be  mysterious,  but  which  the  men  of  our 
day  can  use  and  control,  because  they  have 
learned  how.  If  there  are  natural  forces 
which  can  be  reached  or  directed  by  pray- 
er, it  is  not  unimaginable  that  human  in- 
telligence may  gain  a  more  definite  use, 
and  some  measure  of  control  of  them  also. 
Men  pray  to  God,  but  there  is  no  natural 
force  that  the  idea  of  God  does  not  in- 
clude. The  more  rational  idea  of  prayer 
would  seem  to  be  not  an  argument  or  en- 
treaty which  influences  the  sentiments  of 
the  Deity,  but  a  force  which  acts  directly 
on  some  force  which  is  included  in  God. 
Of  prayer  so  considered  it  is  as  obvious  a 
necessity  that  the  results  it  seeks  should 
accord  with  God's  will  as  that  the  results 
expected  from  the  control  of  other  natural 
forces    should    accord    with    the    laws  of 


37 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


nature.  Men  do  not  expect  water  to  run 
up  hill  and  turn  a  mill-wheel.  Hiey  have 
found  out  that  water  runs  down  hill.  But 
if  the  use  of  water  was  still  in  the  experi- 
mental stage  they  might  put  their  mill- 
wheels  at  various  points  to  see  what  results 
they  got.  Until  they  learned  the  laws  of 
nature  as  they  affect  water,  water-power 
would  be  a  mysterious  and  uncertain  force. 
Prayer  is  still  in  the  experimental  stage. 
We  know  that  it  is  of  no  use  as  a  force, 
except  so  far  as  it  conforms  to  the  will  of 
God.  Yet  many  of  us  believe  that  it 
brings  things  to  pass  which  would  not  hap- 
pen without  it.  Electricity  works  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  will  of  God  when  it 
hauls  a  street  car,  but  it  would  not  haul 
the  car  except  for  the  interposition  of  the 
will  of  man.  So  we  constantly  use  prayer 
as  though  it  were  an  objective  force,  sub- 
ject to  the  will  of  man  in  accordance  with 
the  will  of  God.  We  are  pretty  sure  that 
the  will  of  God,  including  and  regulating 
all  natural  forces,  is  invariable,  not  sub- 
ject to  whims  or  argument  or  entreaty. 
When  we  pray,  then,  we  do  not  hope  to 

38 


Work  a?id  the  Yankee 


alter  God's  will,  but  rather  for  the  apphca- 
tion  to  a  special  case  of  some  force  whose 
existence  is  suspected  rather  than  under- 
stood, which  is  included,  as  are  all  natural 
forces,  in  God,  but  which,  like  other  forces, 
is  subject  to  our  will  in  proportion  as  we 
understand  the  laws  that  govern  it.  But 
we  don't  seem  to  know  enough  about 
prayer  yet  to  adapt  our  methods  with  any 
certainty  to  its  possibilities.  We  set  up 
our  mill-wheels  and  wait  to  see  which  way 
the  force  tends,  and  whether  or  not  it  will 
turn  them.  We  string  our  wires,  but  don't 
quite  know  how  to  get  the  electricity  into 
them.  We  cannot  gear  our  wants  by 
prayer  to  the  great  central  force  so  as  to 
get  our  necessities  satisfied.  When  we 
have  more  nearly  perfected  our  knowledge 
of  prayer,  and  of  the  will  of  God,  we 
will,  perhaps,  be  able  to  do  that  very  thing. 
Then,  when  we  see  a  comet  coming  our 
way  we  may  be  able  to  pray  our  planet  out 
of  its  course  as  easily  as  we  steer  a  ship 
out  of  the  course  of  another  and  avoid  a 
collision.  Then,  when  we  are  in  such  a 
predicament  as  often  are  the  passengers  of 

39 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


a  disabled  steamer,  we  can  count  with  some 
certainty  upon  calm  seas  and  succor  from 
the  nearest  ship. 

Man  is  not  the  supreme  force  of  the 
Universe,  but  he  is  akin  to  it.  He  shares 
its  quality.  All  things  are  possible  to  him 
if  only  he  can  learn  how.  If  he  can  ever 
become  the  reverent  master  of  scientific 
prayer,  we  may  expect  to  see  the  rate  of 
his  progress  indefinitely  accelerated.  The 
incurable  will  be  cured  then  ;  the  imprac- 
ticable will  be  done  ;  the  secret  of  perpet- 
ual motion  will  be  revealed  ;  the  fountain 
of  youth  will  gush  out.  The  millennium 
will  have  come,  but  only  for  those  who 
learn  to  know  it. 


40 


IV 
CHORES 


CHORES 

T  is  complained  of  the  times 
that  they  make  too  many 
speciah'sts.  The  economical 
division  of  labor  seems  to  de- 
mand that  workers  shall  con- 
fine themselves  to  a  particular  detail  of  a 
job,  which  passes  out  of  their  hands  to  be 
completed.  Editors  no  longer  set  type 
and  write  up  local  occurrences.  Physi- 
cians, in  increasing  numbers,  confine  their 
ministrations  to  the  eye,  or  the  ear,  or  the 
throat,  or  the  vermiform  appendix.  Among 
artisans  it  is  the  exception  when  a  single 
tailor  completes  a  coat,  or  one  machinist 
makes  a  complete  machine.  Consequently 
specialists  abound  and  all-around  men  are 
scarce. 

Now,  it  is  economical  and  profitable  on 
various  accounts  to  be  a  specialist,  but 
there  are  charms,  and  even  a  measure  of 

43 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


advantage,  about  being  an  all-around  man, 
and  means  that  tend  to  preserve  the  capac- 
ity to  deal  with  things  in  general,  without 
sacrificing  the  mastery  of  something  in  par- 
ticular, are  worth  cultivating  in  the  interest 
of  general  development.  That  must  be  the 
developing  specialist's  justification  in  cul- 
tivating the  branch  of  domestic  industry 
known  as  "  chores."  It  is  apparently 
wasteful  for  a  man  who  can  earn  several 
dollars  an  hour  at  the  work  which  is  his 
specialty  to  spend  any  of  his  time  in  labor 
which  can  be  better  performed  for  him  by 
the  man  whose  time  is  worth  very  much 
less.  If  the  better  paid  man  lets  his  chores 
encroach  upon  the  hours  that  belong  to  his 
special  work,  he  certainly  is  wasteful,  but 
it  does  not  prove  that  it  is  wiser  for  him  to 
forego  chores  altogether.  In  moderation 
and  at  proper  times  they  are  good  for  him. 
As  a  rule,  the  better  he  is  paid  for  the 
hours  he  spends  on  his  regular  job,  the 
fewer  hours  he  works  at  it.  That  is  not 
because  he  is  satisfied  with  less  than  he  can 
earn,  but  because  high-priced  work  is 
usually   exhausting,    and   cannot   be   long 

44 


Chores 

kept  up  without  loss  of  quality.  So  the 
best-paid  men  commonly  have  some  leisure, 
part  of  which  they  should  devote  to  culture 
and.  various  supplementary  duties,  and  part, 
I  maintain,  to  chores  which  cannot  be  left 
out  without  appreciable  detriment. 

We  are  used  to  being  told  that  it  is  not 
enough  to  give  mere  money  to  charity,  and 
that  our  benefactions,  if  they  are  to  do  the 
most  good  to  us  and  to  those  whom  they 
help,  must  include  personal  service.  We 
seem  to  owe  a  measure  of  personal  service 
to  domestic  life  as  well  as  to  charity,  and 
if  we  do  not  pay  it,  domestic  life  does  not 
yield  to  us  all  that  we  might  get  out  of  it. 
The  ability  to  do  things  depends  partly 
upon  our  willingness  to  do  them  now  and 
then.  But  the  ability  to  do  things  is  power, 
and  power  is  very  sweet  to  have  and  to  ex- 
ercise, and  that  not  only  in  great  things 
but  in  small.  The  man  who  cannot  do  the 
ordinary  small  tinkering  that  has  to  be 
done  from  week  to  week  in  an  ordinary 
modern  house  denies  himself  a  conscious- 
ness of  power  which  is  very  cheap  at  the 
price  it  costs.    Not  to  be  able  to  put  wash- 

45 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


ers  on  a  leaky  water-faucet,  to  take  off  or 
put  on  gas-burners,  and  to  remedy  the  sim- 
pler maladies  of  plumbing,  is  to  admit 
one's  self  to  be  the  mere  occupant,  but  not 
the  master,  of  the  modern  house.  To  put 
in  glass  takes  too  much  time,  and  alto- 
gether it  is  not  as  necessary  to  the  modern 
as  it  was  to  his  grandfather  that  he  should 
know  how  to  be  his  own  glazier.  So  with 
most  carpenter  work.  It  takes  too  long  to 
do  well  any  job  of  consequence ;  better 
have  in  the  adept  from  his  shop.  And  yet 
some  tools  and  the  ability  to  use  them  seem 
to  be  indispensable  to  the  householder's 
self-respect.  Not  to  be  able  to  plane  the 
top  of  a  door  or  the  edge  of  a  drawer  when 
it  sticks ;  or  to  drive  a  nail  straight,  or  send 
home  a  screw  without  splitting  the  wood, 
or  fit  a  key,  or  mend  a  child's  toy,  must 
involve  a  humiliating  consciousness  of  in- 
efficiency. Yet  there  are  men  who  strive 
to  reconcile  with  self-esteem  all  these  in- 
competencies, and  another  more  inexcus- 
able than  either  of  them — the  inability  to 
run  a  furnace  and  raise  or  lower  the  tem- 
perature of  one's  habitation  at  will. 
46 


Chores 

Tuning  pianos  and  mending  dormant 
clocks  are  accomplishments,  and  do  not 
come  under  the  head  of  ordinary  chores. 
Moreover,  they  are  occupations  of  elegant 
leisure,  and  not  for  the  odd  moments  of  a 
busy  life.  But  with  true  chores  it  is  differ- 
ent. There  is  a  flavor  about  them  which 
is  too  valuable  to  be  lost  out  of  life.  A 
householder  who  has  none  that  he  recog- 
nizes might  almost  as  well  live  in  a  hotel. 
He  is  the  sort  of  man  who  rings  for  a  ser- 
vant when  the  fire  falls  down.  Poor  help- 
less one,  who  misses  so  much  of  the  luxury 
of  doing  things  for  himself! 

In  my  own  case  I  recognize  a  possibility 
that  I  may  shortly  come  to  have  leisure  for 
all  the  self-improvement  in  the  way  of 
chores  that  I  care  to  undertake,  for  since  The  profit 

and  loss  of 

my  brother  Mundanus  has   become    rich  havinga 

famous 

and  famous  as  the  author  and  autocrat  brother. 
of  the  Boot-Jack  Trust,  I  have  been  very 
strongly  tempted  to  stop  working  for  my- 
self and  arrange  with  him  for  my  support. 
It  may  be  that  I  shall  conclude  that  the 
habit  of  drudgery  is  too  firmly  fixed  on  me 
to  be  thrown  off  with  impunity,  so  that 

47 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


perha^js  I  shall  elect  to  go  on  working  ;  but 
if  I  do,  it  will  be  in  the  nature  of  a  self- 
indulgence,  maintained  for  mere  personal 
ease,  against  my  conviction  of  what  is  just 
and  right.  For  my  argument  is,  and  it 
is  conceived  on  general  and  impersonal 
grounds,  and  founded  without  prejudice 
on  dispassionate  observation,  that  a  com- 
fortable maintenance  without  work  is  a  very 
moderate  set-off  to  any  ordinary  man  for 
the  inconvenience  and  detriment  of  having 
an  immoderately  successful  brother.  The 
reason  lies  in  the  incorrigible  tendency  of  so- 
ciety to  measure  brothers  by  the  same  stand- 
ard. When  they  are  little,  society  puts 
them  back  to  back  and  observes  which  is 
the  taller.  When  they  are  grown,  it  piles 
their  achievements  or  renown  or  incomes 
up  side  by  side,  and  remarks  which  pile  is 
bigger.  Mr.  Rockefeller's  or  Mr.  Astor's 
income  may  run  up  into  the  millions,  with- 
out making  anyone  think  the  worse  of  my 
capacity  ;  but  ever  since  it  became  known 
that  Mundanus  was  getting  fifty  thousand  a 
year  (largely  payable  in  Boot-Jack  stock, 
as  I  happen  to  know,  but  the  public  doesn't) 
48 


Chores 

it  has  been  imputed  to  me  as  a  fault,  and 
somewhat  of  a  disgrace,  that  my  in-takings 
are  not  so  large.  It  is  so  -well  understood 
as  to  be  beyond  argument  or  dispute,  that 
in  children  of  the  same  parents  quite  as 
much  disparity  of  characteristics  and  abili- 
ties obtains  as  in  persons  who  are  not  allied 
by  blood.  So  also  some  brothers  have  a 
better  education,  or  better  opportunities, 
or  better  luck  than  others.  Nevertheless, 
however  conscientiously  a  man  may  have 
used  the  talents  given  him,  and  whatever 
honorable  progress  he  may  have  made  in 
life,  if  it  be  his  misfortune  to  have  a  me- 
teoric brother,  who  has  sailed  conspicuous 
where //^  has  had  to  plod,  and  arrived  glori- 
ous while  /le  has  sweated  in  patient  aspira- 
tion, the  slow-gaited  man  is  bound  to  suf- 
fer as,  I  do,  by  disparaging  comparison  with 
his  ocuix)d  fellow  of  the  same  brood. 

Lord  Nelson  had  a  brother,  a  clergyman, 
who  might  have  passed  down  into  a  re- 
spectable obscurity  but  for  a  misfortune  of 
birth  which  has  lugged  him  into  history  as 
a  person  who,  in  spite  of  his  breed,  had  no 
talent  for  fighting,  and  not  even  a  reason- 

49 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


able  regard  for  Lady  Hamilton.  William 
Nelson,  however,  at  least  inherited  his 
brother  Horatio's  title  and  estates,  and 
found  in  them,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  some 
compensation  for  the  disparaging  compa- 
rison from  which  he  suffered.  George 
Washington  had  a  brother ;  but  with  the 
far-seeing  consideration  characteristic  of  a 
patriot-statesman,  he  buried  him  long  be- 
fore the  Revolution.  Lord  Tennyson  had 
a  brother,  who  is  best  known  to  our  time 
as  that  brother  of  the  Laureate  whose  verse 
was  not  so  good  as  Alfred's. 

Analogous  examples  abound,  some  of 
them  are  so  familiar  that  it  would  be  in- 
delicate to  name  them  in  print.  What 
worthy  and  delightful  men  of  our  own  day 
and  nation  have  been  overshadowed  by 
the  spreading  renown  of  their  brother, 
the  great  poet !  What  gifted  and  zealous 
preachers  are  best  identified  to-day  as 
brothers  of  some  supreme  genius  of  the  pul- 
pit!  There  are  some  families,  to  be  sure, 
as  the  Washburnes,  the  Adamses,  the  Sher- 
mans, the  Fields,  or  the  Potters,  in  which 
an   inheritance   of  talent  and  energy  has 

50 


Chores 

been  so  evenly  distributed  that  the  whole 
brood  seemed  to  climb  abreast  out  of  the 
ruck  of  common  humanity.  Such  brothers 
as  these  are  in  a  fortunate  case,  and  the 
credit  of  each  one  helps  up  the  others.  But 
far  more  commonly  it  happens  that  when 
high  success  visits  a  family  at  all  it  comes 
in  a  lump  upon  a  single  member.  How 
reasonable  it  would  be  in  such  cases  if  the 
less  fortunate  members  should  lament  the 
success  of  the  lucky  one,  and  lay  his  re- 
nown up  against  him  !  To  the  credit  of 
human  nature  be  it  noted  that  it  seems  usu- 
ally not  to  happen  that  way.  The  remark- 
able law  which  decrees  that  he  who  has 
shall  have  more,  usually  proves  its  power, 
and  the  successful  brother,  besides  the  ma- 
terial advantages  that  his  achievements 
bring  him,  commonly  enjoys  an  exagger- 
ated share  of  the  esteem  and  admiration  of 
his  own  kin.  My  brother  Mundanus,  by 
his  notorious  successes,  has  impaired  my 
individuality.  However  hard  I  try,  I  can 
never  hope  hereafter  to  be  known  of  men 
except  as  a  brother  of  Mundanus  of  the 
Boot- Jack  Trust.     Yet  I  feel  no  resentment 

51 


Cousm  Anthony  and  I 


toward  him.  I  rejoice  in  him,  I  am  jiist  as 
fond  of  him  as  ever,  and  j^roud  of  him  be- 
sides. I  make  no  effort  to  get  out  of  his 
shadow.  Our  families  still  commune  to- 
gether, and  it  was  only  this  morning  that 
my  eldest  son  suggested  that  my  project  of 
sending  him  to  college  was  unwise,  and  that 
it  would  be  vastly  better  for  him  to  shelve 
his  books  and  go  down  and  strike  his  Uncle 
Mundanus  for  a  job.  I  should  prefer  that 
Cato  should  go  on  with  his  studies,  and 
shall  so  counsel  him  ;  but  so  far  as  his  dis- 
position to  get  something  out  of  Mundanus 
is  concerned,  I  am  convinced  that  that  is  a 
sound  instinct  and  based  on  equity. 


52 


V 

CONSIDERATIONS 
MATRIMONIAL 


CONSIDERATIONS 
MATRIMONIAL 

fOUSIN  ANTHONY  has  been 
in  to  tell  me  of  the  betrothal 
of  his  son  Ajax  to  a  young 
woman  of  exceptionally  vo- 
luminous financial  prospects. 
My  cousin  is  not  himself  a  man  of  large 
means,  and  his  children's  fortunes  are  still 
to  be  made ;  nevertheless  it  was  not  with-  a  ricJ^glri 
out  an  air  of  deprecation  and  symptoms  of 
uneasiness  that  he  told  me  what  Ajax  had 
done.  He  confided  to  me  the  name  of  the 
maiden's  father,  and  little  as  I  know  about 
finance  I  recognized  its  fiscal  potency,  and 
realized  the  probability  that  the  daughter 
of  such  a  parent  would  some  day  be  very 
rich.  I  asked  Anthony  how  it  happened. 
He  could  not  tell  me  much.  It  had  been 
sudden  news  to  him,  and  wholly  unex- 
pected.    Beyond  the  fact  that  it  had  hap- 

55 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


pened  he  knew  little.  Ajax  had  asked 
neither  his  advice  nor  his  consent.  The 
young  woman's  natural  protectors  had  ap- 
parently made  no  effort  to  interfere.  If 
she  chose  to  marry  Ajax  they  seemed  will- 
ing that  she  should  do  so,  and  the  engage- 
ment was  liable  to  be  announced  at  any 
moment  on  the  ticker-tapes,  and  in  the 
society  columns  of  the  daily  papers. 

I  congratulated  Anthony,  of  course ;  but 
it  was  evident  that  the  disparity  between 
his  son's  fortune  and  that  of  his  prosi^ective 
daughter-in-law  embarrassed  him,  and  that 
he  had  come  in  not  so  much  to  be  felici- 
tated as  to  be  reassured.  So  I  did  my  best 
to  reassure  him. 

Remarking  (not  without  some  private 
satisfaction  in  the  thought)  that  Ajax 
seemed  to  feel  entirely  competent  to  man- 
age his  affairs,  and  that,  anyhow,  the  busi- 
ness had  already  passed  the  point  where 
interference  was  possible,  I  proceeded  to 
dwell  at  some  length  on  the  disadvantages 
that  had  to  be  overcome  by  a  young  man 
of  character  and  ability  who  married  a 
very  rich  girl.      What  such  a  young  man 

56 


Considerations  Matrimonial 

was  after  in  life  was  of  course  to  work 
out  what  was  in  him.  As  long  as  he  was 
tolerably  poor  he  had  the  stern  incentive 
of  scant  means,  and  if  a  family  became 
dependent  on  his  efforts,  the  incentive  be- 
came so  much  the  stronger.  In  that  case 
he  must  work  hard,  take  care  of  his  health, 
grasp  every  chance,  be  temperate,  thrifty, 
and  far-sighted,  since  only  by  the  most  ear- 
nest devotion  could  he  hope  for  such  success 
as  would  yield  him  the  comforts  of  life. 
But  to  the  husband  of  a  woman  of  fortune 
this  incentive  would  be  almost  wholly  lost, 
though  the  mischief  might  in  some  degree 
be  counterbalanced  by  the  opportunities 
for  very  advantageous  labor  which  a  pow- 
erful family  connection  may  often  control. 
I  went  on  to  point  out  some  of  the  perils 
which  beset  the  path  of  the  working  hus- 
band of  a  rich  wife.  He  may  get  lazy  and  i^  frisky 
stop  work.  It  will  be  easy  for  him  to  do  ^'»'«^'. 
so,  since  if  anything  happens  to  check  his 
labors  the  strain  will  be  immediately  re- 
laxed, and  someone  will  stand  ready  to 
undertake  any  task  he  may  choose  to  lay 
down.     Instead   of  having  his  endurance 

57 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


strengthened  by  moderate  hardship,  he  will 
be  pampered.  If  he  needs  a  week's  rest, 
he  will  be  urged  to  take  a  month  ;  if  he 
needs  a  month,  he  will  be  advised  to  go 
abroad  and  spend  the  summer.  He  will 
probably  be  over-fed  and  very  possibly  he 
will  develop  gout.  He  will  drink  cham- 
pagne when  he  should  be  drinking  claret, 
and  claret  when  he  should  not  be  drinking 
at  all.  He  will  be  liable  to  be  called  upon 
to  waste  much  time  aboard  yachts  ;  he  will 
be  exposed  to  many  perils  from  horses  j 
he  will  be  liable  to  travel  at  short  notice 
to  the  remotest  places  for  the  benefit  of 
his  health,  or  his  wife's  health,  or  the 
health  of  his  children ;  he  must  run  the 
risk  of  being  oppressed  by  a  multiplicity 
of  servants,  and  of  having  his  energies 
frittered  away  in  detail  by  the  cares  of 
large  establishments.  He  will  be  nagged 
by  promoters  who  will  offer  him  opportu- 
nities to  invest  his  wife's  surplus  income.  It 
will  be  very  hard  for  him  to  stick  to  busi- 
ness. Small  matters  will  not  be  worth  his 
attention,  and  the  direction  of  large  con- 
cerns is  not  to  be  learned  without  prelim- 

58 


Considerations  Matrimonial 

inary  training  in  affairs  of  less  importance. 
Then  there  will  be  his  children.  He  will 
have  to  see  that  his  boys  are  not  ruined  by 
luxury,  and  that  adventurers  do  not  steal 
his  daughters. 

But,  of  course,  I  went  on  to  say,  seeing 
Anthony  growing  solemn,  somebody  must 
marry  the  rich  girls.  There  might  be 
enough  rich  young  men  to  pair  off  with 
them  if  all  the  rich  bachelors  were  avail- 
able ;  but  as  long  as  a  large  percentage  of 
the  rich  bachelors  insist  on  marrying  poor 
girls  there  is  no  choice  but  for  some  rich 
girls  to  marry  poor  men  or  none.  And, 
after  all,  if  a  girl  is  truly  a  nice  girl,  it 
would  be  a  shame  to  avoid  her  because  of  JtcJ^sarify 
her  fortune.  When  I  was  young,  I  told  aiu^ 
him,  if  I  had  really  loved  a  girl,  and  she 
had  loved  me,  and  had  been  of  age  or  an 
orphan,  I  would  have  married  her  if  she 
had  owned  all  New  York  between  Canal 
Street  and  Central  Park.  Dreadful  as  it 
would  have  been  to  be  burdened  with  such 
a  load  I  would  have  felt  that  a  true  affec- 
tion might  make  it  tolerable. 

I  think  I  was  a  comfort  to  cousin  An- 

59 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


thony.  He  went  away  looking  a  good  deal 
less  dejected  than  when  he  came  in.  What 
a  happiness  it  is,  to  be  sure,  when  one  gets 
a  chance  to  benefit  a  fellow  -  creature's 
spirits  by  changing  his  point  of  view  !  I 
did  no  violence  to  my  conscience  either  in 
speaking  to  him  as  I  did,  for  really  there  is 
no  insuperable  objection  to  marrying  a  very 
rich  woman  and  even  living  on  her  money. 
Most  men  prefer  wives  with  incomes,  all 
other  things  being  equal,  if  they  are  to  be 
had.  It  is  true  that  prudent  husbands  pre- 
fer some  measure  of  financial  independence, 
and  are  loath  to  rest  their  entire  mainte- 
nance on  a  wife's  provision ;  but  that  is  a 
matter  of  detail,  and  it  is  not  necessarily 
discreditable  to  even  an  able-bodied  man 
that  he  should  live  on  his  wife's  money.  If 
there  is  money  enough  it  may  be  more  con- 
venient for  both  of  them  and  all  concerned 
that  it  should  be  used  in  that  way.  Good 
husbands  are  worth  all  rich  women  can 
afford  to  give. 

It  accords  very  definitely,  however,  with 
public  opinion  that  dependent  husbands  of 
rich   women    should   be   good    husbands. 
60 


Considerations  Matrimonial 


Rightly  or  wrongly,  there  is  more  patience 
with  the  failures  of  men  who  are  casually 
married  than  with  tlaose  with  whom  do- 
mestic life  is  a  profession.  If  the  depend- 
ent husband  of  a  rich  wife  earns  his  main- 
tenance no  man  is  better  entitled  to  the 
respect  of  the  community.  If  .he  can  keep 
his  wife's  respect,  cultivate  her  intelligence, 
keep  her  mind  in  a  progressive  state,  and 
make  her  reasonably  happy  and  do  equally 
well  by  himself,  he  is  performing  a  difficult 
part  in  a  creditable  and  workman-like  man- 
ner, and  has  no  occasion  to  fret  about 
where  his  money  comes  from.  He  cannot 
justly  be  held  answerable  for  results,  because 
his  most  conscientious  efforts  may  not  be 
successful.  If  he  cannot  make  his  wife  af- 
firmatively happy  he  should  try  to  keep  her 
from  becoming  aggressively  discontented, 
and  even  though  he  fails  in  that,  he  should 
still  endeavor  to  keep  her  respectable.  If 
he  ceases  to  be  her  lover,  he  should  still  be 
her  protector.  Married  or  otherwise,  it  is 
an  achievement  to  be  respectable  and  a 
considerable  feat  to  maintain  a  tolerable 
continuity  of  happiness. 
6i 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


I  was  saying  the  other  day  to  that  stately 
lady,  Mrs.  Damocles,  that  I  had  such  a  high 
opinion  of  Winship,  partly  because  of  his 
exceptionally  enlivening  personal  qualities 
and  partly  for  his  marvellous  discrimination 
in  the  choice  of  a  ^vife.  And  I  added  that 
I  had  the  very  highest  opinion  of  Mrs. 
Winship  because  of  her  sense  and  her  love- 
liness, and  especially  because  of  her  success 
in  living  with  Winship  and  being  his  wife. 
Now  Winship  is  a  good  man  and  delightful 
company.  He  is  pretty  to  look  at  and  very 
good  indeed  to  go  ;  but  he  has  a  prodigious 
enjoyment  of  life  and  such  an  unbroken 
eagerness  to  taste  everything  that  is  good, 
and  be  in  everything  that  is  moving,  that  I 
felt  that  I  cast  no  reflection  upon  him  when 
I  said  that  for  a  woman  to  live  with  him, 
as  Mrs.  Winship  did,  was  a  great  feat. 

**It  is  a  great  feat,"  remarked  Mrs. 
Damocles,  with  a  certain  air  of  giving  her 
mind  relief,  "  for  any  woman  to  live  with 
any  man,  or  any  man  to  live  with  any 
woman." 

"  Well,  if  it  comes  to  that,"  said  I,  <'  I 
presume  it  is,  and  it  is  a  feat  exceedingly 
62 


Considerations  Matrimonial 

well  worth  accomplishing.  I  find  I  have 
more  and  more  respect  the  older  I  grow 
for  people  who  hit  it  off  gracefully  and  suc- 
cessfully." 

That  was  true.  I  do  have  such  a  senti- 
ment for  such  people,  and  I  dare  say  it  is 
a  sentiment  as  common  as  it  is  well 
founded.  It  is  a  considerable  feat  for  a 
grown  man  and  a  grown  woman  to  live 
together  happily,  and  the  people  who  ac- 
comphsh  it  in  any  high  degree  of  perfec- 
tion must  either  be  very  nice  people  or 
must  try  very  hard.  I  respect  them  either 
way,  whether  their  success  is  due  to  natu- 
ral sweetness  or  to  sustained  effort.  Peo- 
ple who  are  capable  of  sustained  effort 
to  maintain  the  harmony  of  their  domes- 
tic relations  are  very  good  sort  of  people. 
They  must  have  fidelity,  that  king-pin  H'^^f^'^^ 
among  the  virtues,  and  divers  other  strong 
ingredients  that  go  to  make  up  what  we  call 
"  good  stuff."  I  am  not  sure  but  that  we 
should  respect  them  even  more  than  folks 
who  are  simply  bom  sweet  and  reasonable, 
and  who  love  each  other  and  get  on  with- 
out trying. 

63 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


It  is  matter  of  record  that  in  patri- 
archal and  scriptural  times  it  was  held  a 
thing  particularly  good  and  pleasant  to 
behold  brethren  dwell  together  in  unity. 
That  man  and  wife  should  dwell  in  that 
way  seems  not  to  have  been  thought  so 
affecting  a  spectacle.  Perhaps  it  was  held 
that  if  a  patriarch  could  not  live  harmo- 
niously with  one  wife,  he  could  with  an- 
other, or  perhaps  the  sentiment  of  the 
times  favored  hammering  a  disorderly 
wife  with  a  tent-pin  until  she  became 
tractable,  so  that  domestic  tranquillity  was 
taken  for  granted.  It  is  not  surprising 
that  with  changed  conditions  and  the  new 
woman  we  moderns  should  have  assumed 
a  different  point  of  view.  Where  we  look 
on  it  is  pleasant  to  be  sure  to  see  brethren 
brotherly,  but  it  is  no  great  matter  if  they 
differ,  for  the  world  is  big  enough  for  them 
all.  But  the  world  is  not  big  enough  for 
the  successful  disagreement  of  man  and 
wife.  They  may  part,  but  it  is  not  suc- 
cess ;  it  is  failure.  Both  must  carry  away 
the  marks  of  it,  and  whatever  may  hap- 
pen neither  is  quite  as  good  as  before.  In 
64 


Considerations  Matrimonial 

spite  of  divorce  laws  and  all  easements  of 
that  sort,  we  have  contrived  to  make  a 
deeply  serious  business  of  marriage.  We 
ought  to  applaud  those  who  succeed  in  it, 
because  success  is  so  indispensably  neces- 
sary. 

It  would  be  a  little  different  if  folks  were 
really  free  to  marry  or  not  as  they  chose, 
with  no  fierce  bugaboo  behind  the  alterna- 
tive. But  the  fact  is  the  majority  of  us 
are  not  quite  free,  for  there  is  a  bugaboo 
behind.     We  are  taught  and  believe  that, 

.  ,        ,  ,  .  ,  and  their 

if  we  don  t  marry,  a  worse  thmg  may  hapi^en  claim 
to  us,  for  we  will  grow  old  without  either 
the  discipline  or  the  companionship  of  a 
mate,  without  children  to  bring  youth  back 
into  our  lives;  indeed,  without  the  ele- 
ments of  a  home.  We  see  people  in  this 
predicament,  and  though  there  are  plenty 
of  encouraging  exceptions,  on  the  whole 
celibacy  seems  so  very  second-rate  to  most 
of  us  that  we  don't  bargain  for  it  except 
under  stress  of  strong  necessity.  Marriage 
in  most  cases  seems  so  preponderately  ex- 
pedient that  we  would  feel  that  we  ought 
to  marry  even  if  we  didn't  want  to,  and  as 

65 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


usually  we  do  want  to,  marriage  becomes, 
practically,  a  necessity. 

I  declare  that  I  am  personally  grateful 
to  married  people  who  get  on  conspicu- 
ously well.  They  are  a  reassuring  spec- 
appiause.  taclc  in  society,  and  as  part  of  society  I 
take  comfort  in  knowing  them,  and  am 
obliged  to  them  for  existing.  And,  of 
course,  I  am  especially  obliged  to  the 
women  like  Winship's  wife,  who  are  par- 
ticularly good  wives.  You  should  see  that 
lady,  how  she  holds  that  hare-brained  creat- 
ure, not  with  too  tight  a  lariat  or  too  loose ; 
neither  nagging  nor  neglectful ;  not  so  de- 
pendent on  him  as  to  shackle  him,  nor  so 
independent  as  to  leave  him  too  free.  Of 
course,  she  couldn't  do  it  it  unless  she  was 
a  woman  of  brains,  and  unless  Winship  was 
a  good  fellow — a  fellow,  that  is,  with  some 
gaps  in  his  selfishness.  She  is  too  good  a 
wife  for  him,  but  I  am  glad  he  has  got  her, 
and  so,  unmistakably,  is  he. 

The  most  effectual  argument  in  favor  of 
marriage  is  the  average  bachelor  of  forty- 
five.     That  is  as  it  should  be.     There  are 
bachelors  of  mature  }ears  who  are  of  such 
66 


Considerations  Matrimotiial 


use  to  society  as  to  justify  their  condition, 
but  the  average  old  bachelor  is  a  warning, 
as  he  ought  to  be.  He  is  a  shirk,  and  I 
have  not  much  patience  with  him.  For 
the  average  spinster  I  have  much  more  re- 
spect. Her  habits  are  almost  always  a 
great  deal  better  than  the  bachelor's,  and 
she  commonly  differs  from  him  in  being 
able,  not  only  to  take  care  of  herself,  but 
of  other  people.  Provided  she  does  not 
exist  in  excessive  numbers,  her  existence  is 
rather  an  advantage  than  a  detriment  to 
her  fellows.  I  like  to  see  her  get  every- 
thing that  ought  to  be  coming  to  her,  in- 
cluding her  full  share  of  liberty,  and  as 
much  happiness  as  she  is  able  to  divert  to 
her  own  use.  It  is  a  question  how  far 
liberty  is  conducive  to  happiness,  but  if  the 
ratio  between  the  two  is  direct,  the  con- 
temporary American  spinster  ought  to  be 
happier  than  spinsters  have  ever  been  in 
time  past,  for  never  spinster  had  her  own 
way  to  the  same  extent  as  she.  In  a  dis- 
course about  middle  age,  contributed  some 
time  ago  to  the  North  American  Review, 
Mrs.  Kate  Gannett  Wells  said  :  "  Middle 
67 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


life  for  an  unmarried  daughter  is  often  very- 
hard,  for  she  may  have  no  real  liberty.  A 
girl  at  forty  ought  to  have  her  own  choices 
just  as  much  as  if  she  were  married." 

For  a  woman  writer,  a  married  woman 
writer,  to  say  "  her  own  choices  just  as 
much  as  if  she  were  married,"  is  an  im- 
pressive bit  of  unsolicited  testimony  to  the 
freedom  of  married  women  in  America, 
and  their  habit  of  doing  just  as  they  please. 
It  is  true,  moreover,  that  unmarried  daugh- 
ters of  reasonably  mature  years  should  have 
just  as  much  freedom  as  their  characters 
and  circumstances  will  permit.  If  they  are 
not  to  have  the  natural  career  that  is  de- 
sired for  womankind,  they  should  be  free 
to  make  some  other  kind  of  career  for 
themselves,  if  they  are  able. 

It  is  an  exceptional  married  woman  who 

will  find  it  possible  to    "have   her   own 

The  con-       choiccs  "  in  anything  like  the  same  degree 

temporary  .  .  ,  i  /-      i 

spinster,  as  the  commg  spinster  of  forty,  who  finds 
herself  released  from  parental  constraint 
and  free  to  get  out  of  the  world  as  much  as 
she  can.  The  earth  is  to  be  hers  and  the 
fulness  thereof.  It  is  opening  to  her,  and 
68 


Considerations  Matrimonial 

she  is  advancing  upon  it  with  flying  feet. 
She  promises  to  be  one  of  the  freest  of 
mortal  creatures,  and  one  of  the  most  co- 
ercive and  competent.  Clubs  are  growing 
up  in  great  cities  for  her  convenience ;  big 
buildings  are  planned  for  her  to  live  in; 
charities  are  looking  to  her  for  manage- 
ment ;  dejjendent  relatives  are  to  owe  their 
support  to  the  results  of  her  intelligent  ^^^^^,-^„-. 
exertions.  There  was  a  time  when  the  I'sesand 
ideal  condition  coveted  by  women  who 
craved  unlimited  freedom  was  that  of  a 
widow  with  one  child.  Widowhood  grows 
yearly  less  necessary,  and  though  the  single 
child  is  as  desirable  as  ever,  it  is  because  a 
child  is  a  pleasure,  and  not  because  one  is 
needed  as  a  protection.  There  is  very  little 
left  in  the  way  of  the  spinster  who  has 
enlightened  parents,  and  the  enlightenment 
of  parents  is  making  such  progress  that  in 
the  course  of  another  generation  we  may 
expect  to  see  it  customary  to  provide  for 
the  inclination  of  unmarried  women  for  an 
independent  existence. 

The  independence  of  married  women  is 
secured  by  law,  and  is  definitely  ascertained. 
69 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


rrgr 


The  independence  of  unmarried  women  of 
mature  years,  which  naturally  follows  and 
was  bound  to  follow,  depends  not  on  statu- 
tory enactment,  but  on  social  custom  and 
notions  of  propriety.  Of  course  it  takes 
longer  to  change  the  views  of  proper  people 
upon  propriety  than  it  does  to  make  a  new 
statute ;  but  the  change  is  coming.  How 
many  spinsters  does  each  of  us  know  who 
have  summer  cottages  on  their  own  hook, 
where,  for  part  of  the  year  at  least,  they 
are  a  law  unto  themselves?  How  many 
who  support  themselves  ?  How  many  who 
travel  where  they  will  without  any  other 
than  financial  limitations?  There  is  a 
good  deal  of  solace  for  the  spinster  in  these 
days,  and  there  is  abundant  reason  to  be 
glad  of  it. 

The  spinster  is  a  great  boon  to  indi- 
viduals, though  perhaps  the  State  has  good 
reasons  for  not  approving  of  her.  Likewise 
to  families.  In  a  land  where  men  have 
little  leisure  to  visit,  and  where  the  habits 
of  married  women  and  children  are  in- 
fluenced, if  not  absolutely  regulated,  by 
the  habits  of  men,  the  spinster  can  make 
70 


Considerations  Matrimonial 

visits,  thereby  keeping  up  old  friendships 
and  bringing  new  atmospheres  into  homes 
that  have  need  of  wholesome  variation. 
The  spinsters  form  the  nearest  approach  to 
a  leisure  class  in  America.  A  vast  work  is 
done  by  them  all  the  time.  A  vaster  work 
awaits  them.  All  social  i)hilosophers  who 
know  anything  will  hail  with  approval 
all  indications  that  promise  increased  lib- 
erty and  thereby  increased  usefulness  to 
spinsters. 


71 


VI 

LOVE,   FRIENDSHIP,  AND 
GOSSIP 


LOVE,   FRIENDSHIP,  AND 
GOSSIP 

ROUSIN  ANTHONY  tells  me 
that  he  has  been  taken  regu- 
larly to  task  by  two  dames  of 
his  acquaintance  because  he 
does  not  dwell  oftener  in  his 
literary  deliverances  upon  the  incident  of 
love.  Love,  they  told  him — and  he  said 
they  were  both  matrons  who  had  lived  long 
enough  in  the  world  to  know  —  was  the 
best  thing  in  life,  and  there  was  nothing 
that  people  liked  better  to  read  about. 
They  insisted  that  it  was  a  professional 
blunder  on  his  part  not  to  write  love-stories 
and  not  to  work  more  of  the  tender  passion  ^  ,  . 
into  his  business  generally.  Anthony  said  ^'^'*^- 
that  he  promised  to  amend,  but  he  admit- 
ted that  he  had  small  hopes  of  doing  so, 
for  he  never  had  been  able  to  make  love- 
literature,  and  it  was  late  in  hfe  for  him  to 

75 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


begin.  He  insisted  that  the  love  that  was 
of  real  value  in  the  world  wasn't  interest- 
ing, and  that  the  love  that  was  interesting 
wasn't  always  admirable.  Love  that  hap- 
pened to  a  person  like  the  measles  or  fits, 
and  was  really  no  particular  credit  to  itself 
or  its  victims,  was  the  sort  that  got  most 
into  books  and  was  made  much  of ;  where- 
as the  kind  that  was  attained  to  by  the  en- 
deavor of  true  souls,  and  that  had  wear  in 
it,  and  that  made  things  go  right  instead  of 
tangling  them  up,  was  too  much  like  duty 
to  make  satisfactory  reading  for  people  of 
sentiment.  If  he  ever  did  write  a  love- 
story  he  believed  he  would  have  no  wom- 
en in  it  at  all,  unless,  possibly,  just  one  to 
make  the  necessary  trouble.  Not  but  that 
women  did  their  full  share  of  all  the  loving 
that  was  done,  and  did  it  to  admiration, 
but  because  to  portray  a  man's  love  for  a 
man  would  give  the  sentiment  of  love,  he 
thought,  in  its  simplest  and  most  lucid 
form,  uncomplicated  by  the  incident  of 
sex.  When  a  man  loved  a  man  you  knew 
what  you  had ;  but  when  he  was  in  love 
with  a  woman  the  diagnosis  was  full  of 
76 


Lorve,  Friendship,  and  Gossip 

perplexities,  and  how  much  of  his  seizure 
was  passion,  how  much  hysteria,  and  how 
much  sincere  affection,  were  subtleties  too 
fine  for  mere  laymen  to  struggle  with. 

I  do  not  think  that  Anthony  will  ever 
write  acceptably  on  love,  and  it  is  probably 
a  wise  instinct  that  steers  him  clear  of  that 
department  of  literature.  Indeed,  I  do  not 
think  he  fully  understands  the  subject. 
And  yet  there  is  something  to  be  said  for 
his  suggestion  that  the  more  admirable 
species  of  love  and  the  worthiest  to  dwell 
upon,  is  not  that  which  one  falls  into  willy- 
nilly,  but  which  is  resolutely  given  out  of 
the  heart.  The  love  into  which  volition 
enters  is  true  love,  quite  as  genuine  as  the 
involuntary  emotion  which  figures  in  love 
at  first  sight.  Faithfulness  is  surely  about 
the  best  quality  that  love  can  possess,  and 
the  very  idea  of  faithfulness  implies  voli- 
tion. The  popular  mind  recognizes  the 
element  of  volition  in  love.  It  expects 
people  to  love  persons  whom  they  ought  to 
love  or  whom  they  have  undertaken  to 
love.  If  a  man  has  a  lovable  wife  and  does 
not  love  her,  it  does  not  pity  him  as  an 

77 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


unfortunate;  it  blames  him  as  a  poor  stick. 
It  is  right.  If  the  man  is  in  love  with  his 
wife,  he  is  in  luck  to  be  sure,  and  he  ought 
to  be  thankful ;  but  if  not,  it  is  no  excuse 
for  his  not  loving  her.  He  ought  to  be 
able  to  love  her  if  he  chooses,  and  if  she 
will  let  him  he  ought  to  choose.  That  is 
the  vox  populi  in  the  matter,  but  perhaps 
in  this  case  it  is  not  divine,  for  certainly 
the  love-story  writers  are  not  out  of  breath 
with  trying  to  echo  it.  They  are  almost 
too  prone  to  treat  the  master -passion  as  a 
wind  that  bloweth  where  it  listeth  and  no- 
where else,  and  some  of  them  have  even 
been  known  to  coddle  married  persons  in 
their  stories  who  run  up  against  extra- 
parietal  affinities  and  are  wrecked  in  the 
resulting  tumult.  But,  of  course,  the  exi- 
gencies of  story -making  are  imperative,  and 
the  demand  for  stories  with  love  in  them 
being  urgent  and  steady,  the  people  who 
supply  it  must  be  suffered  to  write  them  as 
they  can,  even  though  it  may  revolt  some 
thrifty  souls  to  see  misery  misbuilt  out  of 
the  materials  of  happiness. 

Platonic  love  seems  not  to  be  of  much  use 

78 


Lave,  Friendship,  and  Gossip 

to  the  story -makers  unless  it  is  always  on  the 
verge  of  some  unplatonic  excess.  Perhaps 
it  is  due  to  the  artificers  of  romance  and 
their  disparagement  of  it  as  a  thing  not 
useful  to  them  in  their  business  that  our 
opinion  of  its  instability  is  so  decided.  Of 
course  they  are  not  all  against  it.  One  of 
them,  Sir  Walter  Besant,  has  been  discuss- 
ing platonic  friendships,  and  whether  or 
not  they  can  really  be  made  to  work.  He 
thinks  they  may,  but  not  between  two  per- 
sons both  of  whom  are  young. 

It  is  well  that  someone  should  take 
thought  about  platonic  friendships,  for  p^^^^^,-^ 
Nature,  who  superintends  most  things,  does  frientUkips 
not  seem  to  care  very  much  about  them. 
It  makes  no  difference  to  her,  api^arently. 
whether  they  work  or  not.  No  great  natu- 
ral law  governs  them.  The  principle  of 
natural  selection  shirks  responsibility  for 
them,  and  no  one  dares  to  assume  that  the 
fittest  of  them  will  survive.  They  cannot 
be  left  to  take  care  of  themselves,  but,  if 
they  exist  at  all,  must  be  constantly  under 
supervision,  and  subjects  of  argument  and 
special  pleas. 

79 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


Consider  what  the  essentials  of  a  platonic 
friendship  are  !  Are  they  not  that  the  par- 
ties to  it  shall  be  of  different  sexes,  and 
that  there  shall  be  a  considerable  degree  of 
exclusiveness  about  their  intimacy  ?  Does 
anyone  doubt  that  exclusiveness  is  essen- 
tial ?  Intimacy  cannot  be  intimacy  unless 
it  is  more  or  less  exclusive.  We  can  only 
live  one  life  at  a  time,  and  if  we  share  a 
good  part  of  that  with  any  one  person, 
there  is  so  much  the  less  for  the  rest.  If 
a  friendship  is  not  intimate  enough  to  be 
noticeably  exclusive,  does  anyone  ever 
find  it  necessary  to  explain  that  it  is  pla- 
tonic ?  t 

Love  between  women  and  men  was  not 
invented  for  the  entertainment  of  philoso- 
phers, but  largely  for  domestic  purposes; 
and  if  platonic  love  is  to  have  anything 
better  than  a  hazardous  and  unstable  exist- 
ence, the  conditions  of  it  must  be  such 
that  it  may  prosper  without  conflict  with 
Nature's  more  important  ends.  Thus  we 
see  why  platonic  friendshii:)s  between  young 
people  who  might  marry  do  not  endure. 
Such  couples  get  married,  and  their  friend- 
80 


Love,  Friendship,  and  Gossip 

ship  merges  into  a  more  durable  sentiment, 
or  else  one  of  them  marries  someone  else,  a>ui  their 
and  then  it  lapses.  At  least  it  should  lapse, 
for  if  it  does  not,  it  not  only  militates 
against  peace  in  a  family,  but  it  tends  to 
keep  the  unmarried  platonist  from  going 
about  his  business  and  finding  himself  a 
mate,  according  to  Nature's  design.  It  is 
true  that  there  are  women,  and  young 
women  at  that,  who  can  contrive  for  a 
time  to  maintain  a  husband  and  a  simul- 
taneous platonic  intimate.  But  in  such 
cases  one  of  three  things  happens :  either 
the  wife  makes  her  husband  happy  and  her 
platonic  admirer  miserable,  or  she  makes 
her  friend  happy  and  her  husband  miser- 
able, or  she  makes  them  both  miserable. 
If  by  any  chance  or  miracle  of  talent  she 
seems  to  make  them  both  happy,  she  makes 
society  miserable,  because  it  cannot  see 
how  she  does  it.  And  when  society  is 
miserable  it  talks ;  until  finally  it  breaks 
up  the  arrangement.  She  is  bound  to  fail, 
and  the  reason  does  not  lie  in  any  defect 
in  her,  but  in  the  fact  that  her  purpose  is 
contrary  to  the  economy  of  Nature,  which 
8i 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


has  provided  barely  men  enough  to  go 
around,  and  does  not  permit  a  woman  who 
has  a  man  of  her  own  to  monopoHze  other 
men  with  impunity.  Every  marriageable 
man  besides  her  husband  that  any  woman 
absorbs  involves  the  waste  of  some  other 
woman's  opportunities,  and  Nature  abhors 
waste  with  a  proverbial  antipathy. 

As  for  the  platonic  friendships  of  young 
married  men,  they  are  hardly  worth  dis- 
cussing. The  measure  of  them  is  simply 
the  wife's  capacity  to  control  her  feelings. 
It  becomes  clear,  therefore,  that  the  only 
platonic  friendships  that  can  be  trusted  are 
those  that  do  not  interfere  with  Nature's 
plans.  Young  lads,  "hobbledehoys,"  if 
they  are  not  too  rich,  may  cultivate  with 
impunity  transitory  friendships  with  women 
somewhat  older  than  themselves.  Such  as- 
sociations are  instructive  to  the  lad  and 
amuse  the  lady,  without  interfering  in  any 
way  with  her  more  serious  plans.  So  also 
there  are  adult  men,  who,  by  reason  of 
special  circumstances  or  exceptional  per- 
sonal qualities,  gain  special  privileges  of 
platonic  attachment.  It  is  part  of  the  rec- 
82 


Love,  Friendship,  ami  Gossip 

ord  of  the  Chevalier  Bayard  that  he  loved 
dearly  and  without  concealment  another 
gentleman's  wife,  but  he  was  irreproach- 
able and  was  not  a  marrying  man,  and 
what  was  even  more  important,  he  was  al- 
most always  absent  on  warlike  adventures, 
so  that  no  one  grudged  him  the  occasional 
solace  he  found  in  the  lady's  society.  A 
considerable  measure  of  platonic  affection 
can  be  tolerated  in  almost  any  case,  if  it  is 
only  tempered  by  an  adequate  provision  of 
absence. 

Society's  weapon,  as  I  have  said,  against 
an  excess  of  platonic  friendship  is  talk.  It 
is  the  sort  of  talk  known  as  gossip.  It  is 
rather  an  ugly  weapon  at  the  best,  and 
there  is  always  more  or  less  doubt  among 
kind  and  conscientious  people  as  to  wheth- 
er its  use  is  justifiable  or  is  a  mere  indul- 
gence of  their  baser  dispositions.  What 
does  the  present  reader  think  about  it  her- 
self? Is  there  a  justification  for  it  ?  Does 
it  serve  any  purpose  useful  enough  to  war- 
rant its  existence  ?  Does  a  person  who  re- 
fuses to  take  part  in  it  show  himself  superior 
to  his  fellows,  or  does  he  shirk  an  obligation 

83 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


Excuses  /or 


that  he  owes  to  society  ?  When  Jack  Hare- 
brain's  attentions  to  young  Mrs.  McFliget 
gossip.  become  audaciously  conspicuous,  and  the 
whole  community  sits  around  and  discusses 
them,  is  the  community  engaged  in  a  val- 
uable work  that  demands  to  be  done,  or 
is  it  merely  giving  evidence  of  its  mali- 
cious disposition  and  the  emptiness  of  its 
mind? 

There  are  offences  against  society  which 
it  is  the  duty  of  the  district-attorney,  when 
he  learns  of  them,  to  bring  to  the  notice 
of  the  grand  jury,  to  the  end  that  their 
perpetrator  may  account  to  the  law  for  his 
actions.  There  are  also  doings  which  so- 
ciety regards  as  offensive  to  itself  of  which 
the  district-attorney  can  take  no  notice, 
and  which  are  not  of  sufficient  turpitude  to 
engage  the  grand  jury's  attention.  But  in 
every  household  there  are  self-constituted 
grand  jurors  who  sit  on  malfeasances  of  this 
sort  when  the  gossips  bring  the  ne\\'s  of 
them.  Yet  the  gossips,  instead  of  being 
commended  for  their  vigilance,  are  pretty 
generally  execrated,  and  most  of  us,  when 
we  share  their  labors,  do  it  at  some  cost  to 
84 


Love,  Friendship,  and  Gossip 

our  own  self-respect,  and  very  likely  exe- 
crate ourselves. 

Now,  it  is  possible  that  in  the  loftiness 
of  our  conceptions  we  condemn  ourselves 
overmuch,  and  restrain  a  propensity  that 
has  been  cultivated  in  us  for  good.  Gossip 
that  pries  into  hidden  proceedings,  that 
suggests  worse  motives  than  appear,  that 
carries  tales  and  makes  defamatory  sugges- 
tions, is  one  thing.  Gossip  that  discusses 
facts  that  are  patent  is  another.  If  we 
should  see  Jake  Hardman  running  away 
with  Charles  McFliget's  pocket-book  we 
should  think  ill  of  ourselves  if  we  did 
not  cry  "Stop  thief!"  and  join  in  the 
chase  after  the  rascal.  But  suppose  we 
think  we  see  Jack  Harebrain  in  the  act  of 
robbing  McFliget  of  the  affections  of  his 
wife.  Are  we  really  entitled  to  think  bet- 
ter of  ourselves  for  holding  our  tongues 
and  overlooking  this  apparent  larceny,  than 
if  we  expressed  our  sentiments  freely  one  to 
another  ?  If  there  is  enough  talk,  Flora 
McFliget's  ears  will  be  close  stopped  in- 
deed if  some  of  it  does  not  find  its  way 
into  them.     Is  it  a  kindness  to  her  or  to 

85 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


Jack  to  let  their  behavior  pass  unnoticed  ? 
When  there  is  a  bridge  down  on  the  rail- 
road and  a  train  is  coming,  it  may  be 
disconcerting  to  the  engineer  to  halloo  and 
wave  a  red  flag  at  him,  but  after  all  it  is 
kinder  to  jar  his  nerves  a  little  while  there 
is  still  time  to  pull  up,  than  out  of  an  ex- 
treme politeness  to  let  him  go  to  destruc- 
tion. 

Besides,  have  we  not  ourselves  and  our 
own  morals  to  consider,  and  how  it  may- 
afreet  our  own  standards  of  behavior,  to  look 
on  without  remonstrance  at  such  doings  as 
Jack's  and  Flora's  ?  If  we  ignore  that 
sort  of  impropriety  when  it  is  done  in  plain 
sight,  we  may  come  presently  to  think  there 
is  nothing  amiss  in  it,  and  even  to  take  a 
turn  at  it  ourselves. 

It  seems  possible  that  because  gossip  is 
disagreeable  it  does  not  get  even  the  mod- 
erate amount  of  credit  that  is  its  due.  It 
is  conceded  to  be  lively  talk,  but  it  is  felt 
to  be  unamiable,  and  even  mean.  But  if 
it  were  wholly  bad,  decent  people  of  strong 
convictions  about  right  and  wrong  would 
not  countenance  it,  whereas  such  people  do 
86 


Love,  Friendship,  and  Gossip 

at  times  countenance  and  even  take  part  in 
it,  and  not  without  occasional  good  results. 
People  do  not  abstain  from  crimes  for 
fear  of  being  talked  about,  but  they  do 
oftentimes  check  themselves  in  indiscre- 
tions out  of  regard  for  us  gossips,  and  what 
we  may  say  about  them.  Newspapers  take 
pretty  complete  charge  of  society  nowada}'s, 
and  with  some  slight  help  from  the  courts 
see  that  human  conduct  is  regulated  before 
it  gets  intolerable.  But  the  newspapers 
cannot  take  cognizance  of  everything,  and 
some  things  which  they  are  compelled  to 
overlook  it  may  be  our  province  as  gossips 
to  see  to.  If  Jack  Harebrain  and  Mrs. 
McFliget  actually  elope,  the  newspapers 
■will  attend  to  their  case  down  to  its  remotest 
details ;  but  so  long  as  their  dispositions 
are  susceptible  of  cure,  a  worse  thing  may 
happen  than  for  the  gossip's  court  to  take 
note  of  their  case  and  try  to  laugh  them 
back  to  sood  behavior. 


87 


VII 
WOMAN    SUFFRAGE 


WOMAN    SUFFRAGE 

jY  son  Nicodemus  is  a  tractable 
little  boy  and  pleasant  com- 
pany. I  like  to  have  him 
along  when  I  take  my  walks 
abroad,  and  he  likes  to  go. 
But  of  late  his  mother  has  devised  objec- 
tions and  insinuated  impediments  when  I 
have  wished  him  to  accompany  me,  and 
several  times  I  have  found  myself  shuffling 
reluctantly  off  without  him,  and  yet  without 
any  tangible  reason  for  leaving  him  behind. 
But  I  have  since  discovered  the  reason,  Thecurrent 
which  is,  that  his  mother  sees  so  much  fault  «ient  of 

r  1       •  1  .        1  man. 

found  with  man  in  the  current  newspapers 
and  magazines  that  she  fears  its  effect  upon 
my  impressionable  nature,  and  has  forebod- 
ings of  a  day  when  I  shall  come  home  alone, 
and  tell  her  that  I  have  felt  compelled,  on 
humanitarian  grounds,  to  drop  little  Nico- 
demus into  the  river. 

91 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


I  trust  her  misgivings  are  not  well-found- 
ed, but  I  cannot  blame  her  for  entertaining 
them ;  for  certainly,  if  we  are  to  believe 
Madame  Sarah  Grand  and  some  other 
prophets  of  the  magazines,  to  raise  a  man- 
child  in  these  days  is  to  do  humanity  some- 
thing very  like  a  grievous  wrong.  "  What 
is  man,"  exclaims  the  Psalmist,  "  that  thou 
art  mindful  of  him  !  ' '  Madame  Grand  and 
her  sisters  could  have  told  him.  Man,  as 
they  are  mindful  of  him,  is  an  unlucky 
after-thought  of  the  Creator,  who,  for  lack 
of  discipline  and  due  subjection,  has  de- 
veloped into  a  gross  being  drunken  with  a 
sense  of  his  own  importance,  the  oppressor 
of  womankind,  the  blot  upon  Nature's  face 
that  messes  her  perfections. 

There  is  no  use  in  pretending  to  question 
the  accuracy  of  this  description,  or  in  deny- 
ing that  there  would  be  no  trouble  in  the 
world  worth  mentioning  if  it  were  not  for 
man.  He  is  a  poor  creature,  and  always 
has  been  ;  and  ever  since  the  human  exper- 
iment began  it  has  been  one  long  uphill 
struggle  to  try  to  make  a  good  thing  out 
of  him,  and  make  him  do  right.  No  sane 
92 


Woman  Suffrage 


person  has  ever  blamed  woman  for  man's 
shortcomings.  In  spite  of  the  story  of  Eve 
and  the  serpent,  man  has  had  to  bear  the 
blame  for  himself,  and  so  far  as  there  was 
any  blame  to  bear  on  woman's  account  he 
has  had  to  stagger  under  that  too. 

That  has  been  because  he  has  been  re- 
garded as  the  stronger  and  more  sensible  of 
the  two,  and  justly  responsible  for  the  con- 
dition of  the  human  family.  But  there  is  a 
new  theory  now,  set  forth  in  serious  books, 
and  based  on  statistics  and  researches  and 
scientific  analogies,  that  woman  is  the  bet- 
ter creature,  and  the  one  that  knows  more 
and  is  the  better  worth  rearing.  If  this 
theory  is  correct,  it  involves  a  certain 
shifting  of  responsibility  which  the  critics 
of  man  ought  to  recognize. 

If  woman  is  more  of  a  man  than  man  is, 
it  is  she  who  is  to  blame  for  his  degradation, 
and  not  he  for  hers.  She  should  never  have 
permitted  him  to  sink  into  those  unutterable 
depths  in  which  she  sees  him  now.  During 
all  these  years  in  which  she  has  had  him, 
she  should  have  managed  to  hoist  him  up 
on  to  a  decent  plane,  and  make  a  respect- 

93 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


able  creature  of  him.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  is  a  superior  creature,  the  lord  of  crea- 
tion, and  responsible  for  his  guilty  self  and 
for  the  woman  besides,  he  should  have  due 
credit  for  what  he  has  done  well,  as  well  as 
blame  for  his  misdemeanors.  It  is  notori- 
ous that  the  present  progressiveness  of  wom- 
en is  unparalleled  in  human  history.  Shall 
he  have  no  share  of  praise  for  that  ?  If  some 
women  have  climbed  down  on  the  ladder 
he  has  held,  is  no  account  to  be  taken  of 
the  multitude  who  have  climbed  up  ?  Is  it 
to  be  no  mitigation  of  the  discipline  which 
he  has  maintained  in  the  human  family 
that  womankind  has  thrived  so  amazingly 
under  it  ? 

Man,  the  poor  old  thing,  is  not  getting 
justice.  If  he  has  governed  the  world  all 
these  years,  the  immense  advance  of  women 
under  his  rule  does  him  credit.  But  if  he 
doesn't  govern  it,  and  never  has  been  fit  to 
govern  it,  woman  ought  to  be  ashamed  to 
have  neglected  him  as  she  has.  For,  ac- 
cording to  the  latest  theories,  he  is  simply 
what  she  has  permitted  him  to  become. 

I    have    talked   with    Cousin   Anthony 

94 


Woman  Suffrage 


about  Man,  and  also  about  Woman.  He 
tells  me  that  if  woman  suffrage  comes  to  a 
vote  in  New  York  State  he  expects  to  vote 
against  it.  Such,  he  says,  are  the  instruc- 
tions that  Mrs.  Anthony  has  given  him, 
and  as  his  vote  in  the  matter  concerns  her 
more  than  himself,  he  thinks  himself  even 
more  than  usually  bound  to  execute  her 
wishes.  I  found  him  quite  fixed  in  the 
opinion — Mrs.  Anthony's  opinion  —  that  ^^*"t^^v. 
the  suffrage  would  do  the  New  York  women  pleasure 
no  good.  The  favorite  representation  of  ■^<^^an 
the  reformers,  that  everyone  is  allowed 
to  vote  except  aliens,  minors,  idiots,  and 
women,  seemed  to  have  had  no  effect  on 
Mrs.  Anthony.  She  had  no  sort  of  doubt, 
of  course  (nobody  has),  that  wise  women 
were  better  qualified  to  vote  than  foolish 
men.  She  would  not  argue  at  all  whether 
women  were  inferior  to  men  or  not.  She 
could  not  see  its  bearing  on  the  case.  Her 
point  of  view  was  familiar  enough,  being 
simply  that  the  suffrage  was  not  a  privilege 
but  an  obligation,  and  one  which  it  did 
not  seem  to  her  the  duty  of  our  women  at 
this  time  to  assume.     If  the  obligation  to 

95 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


vote  were  laid  with  any  discrimination 
upon  individuals  who  had  proved  their  ca- 
pacity to  exercise  it,  Mrs.  Anthony  thought 
the  case  would  be  different.  She  would 
not  shrink  from  a  duty  that  society  by  any 
reasonable  process  of  selection  seemed  to 
have  chosen  her  to  bear.  But  when  all  the 
men  could  vote  it  was  certainly  no  special 
honor  to  women  to  let  all  the  women  vote 
too.  Nature  had  suggested  in  a  large  way 
the  division  of  labor  between  men  and 
women,  and  though  the  details  of  assign- 
ment varied  from  age  to  age,  and  Mrs,  An- 
thony hoped  that  she  was  well  up  to  the 
times  in  her  estimate  of  the  contemporary 
dimensions  of  woman's  sphere,  she  did  still 
believe  in  the  division  of  labor,  and  she 
had  not  been  able  to  learn  of  any  mitiga- 
tion of  women's  present  duties  by  which  it 
was  proposed  to  offset  the  new  task  which 
threatened  her.  Mrs.  Anthony  declared, 
my  cousin  said,  that  so  far  as  she  under- 
stood her  business  in  life  she  tried  hard  to 
do  it.  What  she  undertook  she  tried  to 
undertake  with  her  eyes  open  and  with  a 
definite  intention  of  performing  it  as  well 
96 


Woman  Suffrage 


as  she  could.  If  she  was  called  to  help 
manage  a  public  charity  and  found  herself 
able  to  respond,  she  went  to  the  meetings 
of  her  colleagues  and  took  her  duties  seri- 
ously. If  children  were  born  to  her  she 
tried  industriously  to  raise  them,  to  keep 
them  clothed  and  healthy,  and  to  bring 
them  up,  as  far  as  she  could,  to  be  toler- 
ably wise  and  good  people.  With  her  chil- 
dren, and  her  household,  and  her  social 
duties,  and  her  labors  in  the  charities  with 
which  she  was  connected,  Mrs.  Anthony 
declared  that  her  hands  and  her  mind  were 
full,  and  that  the  proposal  to  compel  her  to 
keep  up  with  politics,  to  go  to  primaries 
and  vote  intelligently  at  elections  was  an 
imposition  against  which  she  rebelled.  Men 
were  wiUing  enough  nowadays  to  do  for 
women  almost  anything  that  women  really 
wanted  done.  They  were  particularly  will- 
ing to  let  women  do  new  kinds  of  work, 
especially  ill-paid,  vexatious  work  which 
they  were  inclined  to  shirk  themselves. 
But  what  women  really  wanted  was  not  so 
much  the  privilege  of  doing  the  men's  work 
for  them  as  to  have  the  men  do  their  own 


97 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


work  and  do  it  properly.  There  was  noth- 
ing which  women  could  gain  by  having  the 
suffrage  which  they  could  not  gain  at  far 
less  expense  by  having  men  vote  conscien- 
tiously. If  there  was  fighting  which  it  was 
indispensable  to  have  done,  Mrs.  Anthony 
declared  that  she  did  not  aspire  to  do  it 
herself  She  wanted  her  men  to  do  it  for 
her.  She  wanted  her  men  to  do  her  vot- 
ing also.  She  demanded  protection,  secu- 
rity, and  a  reasonable  amount  of  peace  for 
the  better  furtherance  of  her  duties  already 
in  hand,  which  were  far  too  important  and 
too  engrossing  to  share  her  attention  with 
practical  politics.  The  suffrage  once  im- 
posed upon  women,  they  could  never  get 
quit  of  it,  and  it  would  be  imposed,  she 
feared,  unless  the  mass  of  women,  who  don't 
want  it  and  feel  no  obligation  to  under- 
take it,  speak  their  minds  and  proclaim 
how  they  feel  about  it  and  why.  Such, 
Anthony  said,  were  his  wife's  sentiments. 
They  are  emphatic  enough,  certainly,  and 
justify  his  intentions  about  his  vote.  How 
widely  they  are  shared  by  intelligent  women 
in  New  York  State  is  hard  to  find  out,  be- 
98 


Woman  Suffrage 


cause  most  of  the  women  who  think  they 
want  to  vote  sign  petitions,  and  most  of  the 
women  who  don't,  do  nothing.  But  the 
particular  thing  tliat  voting  men  in  New 
York  will  want  to  know  before  they  pass 
upon  the  woman  suffrage  question  at  the 
polls  is,  how  large  a  proportion  of  the  in- 
telligent women  in  the  State  feel  as  Mrs. 
Anthony  does,  and  prefer  to  have  their  vot- 
ing done  by  their  representative  males. 

It  is  remarkable  with  what  unanimity,  in 
appearance  at  least,  the  question  has  been 
left  to  women  to  settle.  In  all  the  talk 
about  it  there  has  been  scarcely  any  inquiry 
as  to  whether  it  would  cost  men  anything 
to  give  women  the  right  to  vote.  The 
whole  discussion  has  turned  upon  the  prob- 
able effect  of  the  ballot  upon  women,  and 
has  prevailed  almost  exclusively  between 
those  who  have  held  that  it  would  pay  her 
to  have  a  vote  and  those  who  have  held  that 
it  would  not.  However  men  in  general 
may  have  pondered  in  their  secret  hearts, 
they  have  had  almost  nothing  to  say  as  to 
whether  it  would  pay  them  to  let  women 
vote.     Representatives  of  some 'few  special 

99 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


interests  have  had  convictions  about  it,  and 
have  allowed  them  to  come  out.  The 
liquor-dealers,  for  example,  are  generally 
understood  to  feel  that  woman -suffrage 
would  be  detrimental  to  their  business  in- 
Biandde-     tercsts ;    but  they  are  alone  among  mer- 

vieanor  of        ,  .  ^    ,  .        ,      .  ,      . 

New  York  chants,  SO  far  as  I  have  noticed,  in  admit- 
Imvardsihe  ting  that  they  could  not  afford  to  meet 
sujjTragis  i.   ^y^^^^^^  ^j  ^j^g  poUs.     The  milHners  are  not 

concerned  as  milliners ;  they  do  not  fear 
that  suffrage  will  affect  the  feminine  taste 
in  bonnets.  The  dry -goods  men  show  no 
uneasiness.  The  manufacturers  of  infants' 
foods  neither  fear  nor  hope.  Makers  of 
bicycles  are  not  especially  hot  for  suffrage, 
nor  are  side-saddle  manufacturers  especial- 
ly opposed  to  it.  The  average  New  York 
man  does  not  seem  to  feel  that  anything 
unprecedented  will  happen  whether  woman- 
suffrage  comes  or  not.  It  does  not  appear 
that  he  apprehends  that  his  vote  will  be 
worth  any  the  less  to  him  because  he  shares 
it  with  a  woman,  or  that  his  liberties  will 
be  restricted,  or  that  the  woman  will  be 
any  less  a  woman  because  she  shares  his 
vote-  Outwardly  at  least  he  has  posed  as 
loo 


Woman  Suffrage 


a  spectator,  interested  indeed,  but  bland, 
courteous,  and  sympathetic  even  in  his 
doubts.  His  behavior  has  been  a  credit  to 
him.  He  has  shown  scarcely  a  sign  of  dis- 
position to  admit  the  existence  or  possibil- 
ity of  any  antagonism  between  the  inter- 
ests of  women  and  of  men.  He  has  not 
been  over-ready  to  believe  that  it  would  be 
advantageous  to  women  to  vote,  but  his 
attitude  has  been  that  if  it  would  be  advan- 
tageous to  them  he  will  not  stand  in  their 
way  ;  and  while  he  has  not  bound  himself 
to  accept  their  opinion  as  to  the  benefits  of 
suffrage  he  has  certainly  shown  an  unaf- 
fected desire  to  know  what  their  opinion 
is,  and  decided  symptoms  of  a  willingness 
to  be  guided  by  it. 

Appearances  are  not  absolutely  to  be 
trusted,  but  so  far  as  they  may  guide  one's 
judgment,  man  in  New  York  really  does 
not  care  very  much,  so  far  as  he  himself  is 
concerned,  whether  woman  votes  or  not. 
Certainly  his  attitude  is  admirable.  It  is 
intelligent  and  affectionate  and  respectful ; 
and  yet  man  never  assumed  an  attitude  that 
showed  more  conclusively  his  confidence  in 

lOI 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


the  authenticity  of  his  commission  as  Lord 
of  Creation.  Even  those  exceptionally  ve- 
hement suffragists  who  denounce  him  as 
the  Tyrant  do  not  scare  him.  He  is  not 
dismayed  at  any  possible  hosts  of  skirted 
voters  that  those  ladies  may  array  against 
him.  He  knows  that  the  ballot  is  but  an 
instrument  and  the  voters  are  but  the  keys, 
and  he  seems  content  that  whoever  can 
shall  play  what  tune  they  may.  The  pos- 
sibility of  more  keys  does  not  worry  him, 
though  he  has  not  yet  conceded  its  advisa- 
bility, for  he  knows  that  be  they  many  or 
few,  they  will  all  yield  their  most  effectual 
music  to  the  hands  that  are  best  adapted  to 
touch  them.  The  tune,  man  thinks,  will 
be  about  the  same  as  heretofore,  and  there 
will  be  no  sweeping  shiftings  of  performers ; 
but  if  more  notes  will  give  fuller  or  more 
harmonious  music,  for  his  part  he  seems 
ready  to  have  them. 

Such,  and  so  confident,  is  his  attitude. 
The  only  wonder  is  that  it  has  not  occurred 
to  any  observant  woman  to  satirize  it  in  a 
gentle  essay  on  "A  Certain  Condescension 
in  Males." 

I02 


VIII 

THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF 
GOOD  AND  EVIL 


THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF 
GOOD  AND  EVIL 

jiT  is  prodigious  what  an  amount 
of  energy  is  sunk  in  the  un- 
successful exercise  of  that  in- 
alienable right,  the  pursuit  of 
happiness.  One  reason  for  the 
waste  is  that  people  are  governed  too  much 
by  the  opinions  of  others  as  to  what  is  pleas- 
ure, and  neglect  to  get  information  that 
would  fit  them  by  analyzing  their  own  ex- 
periences. Thousands  and  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  people  do  things  day  after  day 
with  the  purpose  of  enjoyment,  which  they 
never  have  enjoyed,  and  never  will,  but 
which  they  have  learned  to  regard  as  in- 
trinsically pleasant.  They  ride  horses, 
they  drive,  hunt,  dress,  dance,  or  what- 
ever it  is,  not  because  they  get  personal 
enjoyment  out  of  those  occupations,  but 
because  other  people  have  enjoyed  them. 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


Of  course,  happiness  is  a  state  of  mind  ; 
and  it  is  the  mind,  or  the  soul,  that  we 
want  to  get  at.  We  know  this  well  enough 
theoretically,  but  fail  to  act  with  reasonable 
intelligence  upon  our  knowledge.  To  a 
certain  extent,  the  mind  is  dependent  for 
its  states  upon  the  conditions  of  the  body, 
and  we  are  rightly  taught  that  a  degree  of 
attention  must  be  paid  to  physical  means  if 
we  are  to  get  intellectual  or  spiritual  re- 
sults. But  even  with  the  enjoyment  of  a 
healthy  body  a  very  important  share  of  the 
pleasure  is  quasi-intellectual.  When  he  has 
well  eaten  or  well  drunken  a  man  feels 
pleasantly  disposed  toward  the  world.  His 
feelings  warm,  his  sympathies  are  aroused, 
and  he  is  happy  in  consequence. 

The  exhilaration  of  the  racer  or  the 
huntsman,  of  the  oarsman  or  the  football 
player,  any  high  degree  of  muscular  activ- 
ity in  a  healthy  man,  is  perhaps  the  nearest 
to  a  purely  physical  pleasure ;  but  even  here 
it  is  a  higher  enjoyment  when  it  is  com- 
petitive activity,  for  competition  itself  is  a 
notable  and  legitimate  delight.  "  Rejoiceth 
as  a  strong  man  to  run  a  race,"  the  Script- 
io6 


The  Knowledge  of  Good  and  Evil 

ure  saith,  and  knows  its  business  as  usual; 
for  trying  to  win  involves  a  chance  to  lose, 
and  that  there  is  not  much  fun  where  there 
is  not  some  hazard  has  been  the  rule  since 
Eve  acquired  knowledge  of  evil  at  the  same 
bite  with  good. 

Of  those  purely  intellectual  joys  that 
are  analogous  to  the  physical  joys,  not  all 
are  healthy.  It  is  fun  to  develop  and  exer- 
cise the  mind,  just  as  it  is  to  exercise  the  mus- 
cles ;  but  there  are  joys  of  the  intellectual 
glutton  and  the  intellectual  sot,  joys  that 
are  not  nearly  as  disreputable  as  they  ought 
to  be.  Minds  are  clogged  with  over-feed- 
ing and  racked  by  over-stimulation,  just 
as  stomachs  are.  The  joys  of  acquisition 
are  not  to  be  despised.  Making  money  is 
mighty  pleasant ;  to  have  things  is  an  un- 
questionable source  of  satisfaction  ;  to  col- 
lect rare  commodities,  orchids,  race-horses, 
railroad-bonds  is  a  kind  of  sport  that  thou- 
sands of  people  follow  with  lively  enthusi- 
asm. It  is  fun  to  have  and  to  hold,  to  add 
to  and  complete,  and  it  has  been  since  who 
knows  how  many  centuries  before  Ahab 
longed  for  Naboth's  vineyard.  But  avarice 
107 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


in  all  its  forms,  old-fashioned  and  venerable 
as  it  is,  is  only  a  second-rate  sport,  since  it 
lacks  the  element  that  the  greatest  pleasures 
must  have,  the  element  of  love. 

Not  passion.  Passion  is  one  of  your  sec- 
ond-rate, quasi  -  physical  pleasures,  which 
are  half  pain,  and  cannot  be  depended 
upon.  But  love  is  quite  a  different  matter, 
and  so  detached  from  all  that  is  bodily 
about  us,  as  to  breed  the  hope  that  it  will 
still  be  a  pleasure  to  us  when  we  have  taken 
our  bodies  off.  When  we  have  loved  the 
most,  and  with  the  least  passion  and  the 
least  selfishness,  was  it  not  then  that  we 
attained  most  nearly  to  the  state  of  mind 
which  is  the  great  prize  of  life  ? 

We  cultivate  the  muscles  because  it  is  fun 
to  use  them,  and  because  it  brings  us  the 
happiness  that  comes  of  health.  For  like 
reasons  we  make  a  business  of  the  cultiva- 
tion of  our  minds.  How  simple  it  is  of  us 
to  neglect  to  the  extent  that  most  of  us  do 
the  systematic  cultivation  of  our  hearts ! 
Now  and  then  someone  discovers  that  to 
love  one's  neighbor  with  enthusiasm  is  the 
best  fun  there  is,  and  makes  a  business  of 
108 


The  Knowledge  of  Good  and  Evil 

doing  it;  and  then  the  rest  of  us  lean  on 
our  muck-rakes  and  gape  at  him,  and  won- 
der how  he  can  spare  so  much  time  for  such 
an  object. 

Analogous  to  the  frequent  inability  of 
the  human  mind  to  recognize  the  attrac- 
tiveness of  what  is  really  pleasant  is  the 
inaccuracy  of  its  estimate  of  the  repulsive- 
ness  of  what  is  bad.  It  was  said  the  other 
day  of  a  man  noted  for  his  charitable  esti- 
mate of  his  fellow-creatures  that  he  would 
find  something  to  admire  in  Satan  himself.  JJlf,^,"*^^'"/ 
The  remark  was  told  him,  and  he  said,  ^''^''^''• 
"  Yes,  I  always  did  admire  the  devil  for 
his  persistence."  If  he  adopted  the  popu- 
lar notion  of  Satan  he  might  have  found 
easily  enough  other  grounds  for  admiring 
him ;  for  while  it  is  commonly  held  that 
the  devil  is  not  so  black  as  he  is  painted, 
the  better  opinion  seems  to  me  to  be  that 
nowada}'s  he  is  not  painted  anything  like 
so  black  as  he  is,  and  that  owing  to  the 
unfaithfulness  with  which  his  likeness  is  set 
forth  he  is  very  much  more  generally  ad- 
mired and  respected  than  his  qualities  and 
109 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


true  character  deserve.  The  popular  con- 
temporary conception  of  Satan  is  of  a 
highly  successful  man  of  the  world.  It  is 
admitted  that  there  are  shady  spots  in  his 
past  history,  that  he  has  done  some  things 
that  he  should  regret,  that  he  is  a  hazard- 
ous associate  and  an  unsafe  person  to  have 
transactions  with.  But  conversely  it  is 
realized  that  he  is  rich,  powerful,  and  at- 
tractive, and  intimately  concerned  and  in- 
terested in  promoting  the  material  prosper- 
ity of  the  human  race.  He  is  known  to  be 
full  of  enterprise  and  public  spirit,  disposed 
to  make  things  pleasant,  and  powerful  in 
carrying  the  enterprises  with  which  he  is 
concerned  to  a  profitable  issue.  It  is  true 
that  he  is  understood  to  be  unscrupulous, 
but  it  is  felt  that  success  excuses  very  much, 
and  that  when  an  individual  has  attained  a 
position  which  enables  him  to  be  useful  to 
the  public  it  is  a  mistake  to  be  over-nice 
about  rejecting  his  good  offices  because  in 
early  life,  when  his  necessities  were  more 
pressing,  his  methods  or  affiliations  were 
not  always  such  as  a  conscientious  person 
could  approve.     Then,  thanks  to  the  mis- 


The  Knowledge  of  Good  arid  Evil 

directed  zeal  of  a  multitude  of  worthy  per- 
sons who  assume  to  abhor  Satan  and  all  his 
works,  he  gets  credit  for  a  host  of  things 
with  which  he  really  had  very  little  to  do. 
Lots  of  clergymen  and  others  are  sure  that 
he  invented  all  kinds  of  dances  and  laid 
the  corner-stones  of  all  the  theatres.  He 
gets  immense  credit  all  the  time  in  certain 
quarters  as  the  loosener  of  restrictions  as  to 
.  the  use  of  the  Sabbath,  so  that  in  some 
parts  of  the  country  folks  can  hardly  walk 
in  the  fields  on  a  Sunday  afternoon  with- 
out a  sense  of  obligation  to  him  for  his 
share  in  the  enlargement  of  their  liberties. 
Inasmuch  as  he  is  earnestly  and  continu- 
ously denounced  by  hordes  of  good  and 
zealous  people  as  the  discoverer  and  pro- 
moter of  all  exhilarating  beverages,  people 
who  like  beverages  of  that  sort  and  feel  safe 
in  consuming  them  in  moderate  quantities 
cannot  help  a  certain  kindliness  of  feeling 
toward  him  on  that  account. 

The  upshot  of  all  this  perversion  is  that 
the  enemies  of  the  Adversary  have  unwit- 
tingly carved  him  out  a  great   reputation 
as  the  champion  of  personal  liberty,  and 
III 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


the  purveyor  of  manifold  terrestrial  de- 
lights which  are  not  necessarily  hurtful  to 
those  who  realize  them  with  discretion, 
and  which  are  undeniably  in  favor  with 
the  natural  man.  Consequently  it  is  easy 
for  him  to  masquerade  as  a  public  bene- 
factor, and  folks,  without  admitting  even 
to  themselves  how  well  they  think  of  him, 
grow  to  feel  that  perhaps  he  has  come  to 
be  good-natured  in  his  old  age,  and  that, 
nowadays,  anyhow,  his  behavior  seems 
pretty  square,  and  that,  maybe,  the  stories 
of  his  depravity  do  him  an  injustice. 

To  give  the  devil  his  due  is  proverbially 
proper,  but  to  make  such  a  hero  of  him  is 
not  only  inexpedient  but  very  bad  morals. 
John  Milton  is  partly  to  blame  for  it,  for 
he  first  made  Satan  grand  and  semi -respect- 
able, but  the  work  has  made  great  progress 
since  his  day.  The  pleasantest  and  most 
reassuring  line  in  the  prayer-book  is  that 
which  describes  the  service  of  God  as  per- 
fect freedom.  If  that  idea  of  God's  service 
could  be  more  generally  disseminated, 
with  due  supplementary  inculcation  of  the 
truth  that  all  the  salutary  and  truly  pleasant 

112 


The  Knowledge  of  Good  and  Evil 

things  in  life  are  the  gifts  of  God,  and  not 
devices  of  the  Evil  One,  Satan  would  come 
much  nearer  to  getting  his  due  than  he 
usually  does  come  nowadays,  or  is  likely  to 
come  perhaps  until  the  final  reckoning. 

My  young  friend  McAUo  seems  to  be  a 
victim  of  this  familiar  confusion  of  ideas  as 
to  what  constitutes  freedom  and  what  does 
not.  The  last  time  he  dined  at  our  house, 
he  shocked  me  a  good  deal  by  declaring 
that  the  chief  object  of  his  activities  for 
some  time  past  had  been  to  rid  himself  of 
the  weight  of  "Puritanism"  which  he 
had  incurred  from   several  generations  of  Mc Ana's 

i7npatience 

Straight  -  laced  ancestors.  I  inquired  of  o/his  Puri- 
McAllo  what  his  descent  was,  and  discov- 
ered that  it  was  almost  purely  Scotch  Pres- 
byterian, and  that  what  small  admixture  of 
other  stock  there  was,  was  French  Hugue- 
not. McAllo  complained  that  such  a 
derivation  as  that  was  a  hindrance  to  sport, 
and  admitted  that  he  had  been  busy  for 
months  past  with  horses,  cocktails,  cigar- 
ettes, and  most  of  the  reasonable  appliances 
of  generous  living,  trying  to  modify  the 

113 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


tendencies  that  his  forebears  had  imposed 
upon  him.  His  conscience,  he  said,  was 
too  exacting,  and  he  felt  it  to  be  desirable 
to  mitigate  its  tyranny, 

I  was  affected  by  McAUo's  remarks  very 
much  as  if  he  had  said  that  his  grandfathers, 
by  industry  and  thrift,  had  been  able  to 
hand  him  down  a  material  property,  and 
that  finding  it  inconvenient  to  draw  the 
interest,  he  was  doing  what  he  could  to 
relieve  himself  by  using  his  principal  to 
back  his  luck  at  cards.  There  was  a  good 
deal  of  "bluff"  in  his  allegations,  and  I 
need  not  have  disturbed  myself  so  much 
about  them  ;  but  there  was  also  an  element 
of  misapprehension  which  it  seemed  the 
Christian  duty  of  any  adult  listener  to  cor- 
rect. I  don't  know  that  he  meant  it  so, 
but  when  he  said  "Puritanism,"  to  my 
mind  he  meant  the  power  of  self-restraint 
and  the  ability  to  get  along  on  the  minimum 
of  amusement.  If  McAllo  has  got  these 
things  in  his  blood,  perhaps  it  is  natural 
enough  that,  having  never  felt  the  lack  of 
them,  he  should  undervalue  them,  and  wish 
to  let  a  little  of  them  out.  But  with  you 
114 


71)6  Knowledge  of  Good  and  Evil 


and  me,  who  haven't  got  them  by  nature, 
perhaps,  and  have  to  secrete  by  personal, 
moral  thrift  all  that  we  use,  it  is  dififerent. 
The  tyranny  of  Puritan  tendencies  has  no 
terrors  for  us.  What  worries  us  is  the 
costly  and  unremitting  obligation  to  keep 
ourselves  amused,  under  penalty  of  dissatis- 
faction with  life  whenever  we  don't  succeed. 
It  seems  as  if  a  man  with  such  forebears  as 
McAllo's  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  go  out 
into  the  world  with  his  sickle  and  reap. 
The  hard  work  is  beating  one's  recalcitrant 
self  into  a  useful  creature,  responsive  to 
one's  higher  aspirations  and  promptly  obe- 
dient to  the  will. 

For  this  poor,  admirable  McAllo,  the 
chief  part  of  that  has  been  done.  The  lad 
likes  by  nature  to  learn,  to  work  his  brains, 
to  live  cleanly.  He  can  have  more  fun 
with  Homer  and  a  student's  lamp  than  a 
coarser-fibred  lad  can  have  with  a  bottle  of 
champagne  and  a  pool -table.  Vulgar  or 
vicious  associates  seem  simply  dull  to  him, 
and  he  can  think  more  agreeable  thoughts 
on  milk  and  oatmeal  than  the  average  club 
man  can  on  Pommery  and  terrapin.     That 

"5 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


is  what  a  line  of  plain-living,  high-thinking 
Scotchmen,  now  deceased,  have  done  for 
him,  and  the  poor  ignorant  boy  knows  no 
better  than  to  grumble  about  his  Puritan 
tendencies  !  If  only  they  were  marketable 
commodities,  what  a  price  he  could  get  for 
them  from  some  sad-hearted  millionaire, 
who  needs  a  new  moral  endo^vment  for  his 
son  !  If  they  were  marketable  he  would 
learn  quickly  enough  what  they  were 
worth. 

In  these  days,  when  there  is  so  much 
talk  of  heredity,  we  ought  to  recognize,  as 
usually  we  do  not,  our  obligations  to  the 
decent  men  and  women  from  whom  we 
have  the  good  fortune  to  be  derived.  The 
ancestor  who  hands  us  down  money  gets 
recognition.  He  has  done  something  that 
we  can  understand,  and  we  name  our 
children  after  him  and  try  to  keep  his  name 
before  the  world.  But  the  saints  in  our 
family  records — the  men  and  women  who 
have  made  a  stand  for  us  against  sensuality 
and  laziness — we  do  not  half  appreciate. 
It  is  a  pity  we  are  so  dull.  The  wise  king 
was  as  sagacious  as  usual  when  he  said  that 
ii6 


The  Knowledge  of  Good  and  Evil 

a  good  name  is  rather  to  be  chosen  than 
great  riches ;  but  he  was  indisputably  and 
obviously  sagacious  if,  when  he  said  "a 
good  name  ' '  he  meant  good  blood. 


117 


IX 

CIVILIZATION  AND 
CULTURE 


CIVILIZATION  AND 
CULTURE 

5Y  friend  Felix  has  been  holding 
forth  to  me  upon  the  im- 
portance of  substituting,  in 
thought  and  speech,  the  word 
"civilization"  for  the  word 
"culture."  "  Culture,"  Felix  says,  is  not 
so  much  what  we  need  in  this  new  country 
as  "civilization."  By  civilization,  as  I 
understand  him,  he  means  something  more  ots^/or 
than  that  we  should  eat  with  forks  instead  /lo'n" a^j 
of  knives.  He  means,  I  take  it,  that  we  ^"^uure^ 
should  learn  to  be  better  worth  talking  to, 
better  worth  eating  with,  better  worth  liv- 
ing and  associating  with  generally,  and 
more  worthy  of  being  alive.  Perhaps  he 
feels  as  others  have  felt,  that  we  lack  dis- 
tinction, and  would  have  us  get  it,  but 
whatever  our  need  is,  as  he  sees  it,  he 
doesn't  think  that  "  culture  "  expresses  the 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


means  by  which  we  may  supply  it.  It  is 
true  that  "  culture  "  suggests  somewhat  ex- 
clusively the  cultivation  of  the  intellectuals, 
the  reading  of  books,  the  study  of  lan- 
guages, the  hearing  of  hard  music,  and  the 
inspection  of  difficult  pictures.  Felix  does 
not  deny  that  "  culture,"  so  understood, 
may  help  on  the  civilization  that  he  cries 
out  for,  but  he  maintains  that  people  may 
be  civilized  without  being  especially  intel- 
lectual, and  without  attaining  to  any  very 
notable  flights  of  culture.  To  his  sort  of 
civilization,  to  know  good  books  is  a  help, 
but  hardly  as  much  so  as  to  know  good 
people.  Religion  is  a  great  power  in  pro- 
moting it.  The  arts  and  travel  help  it 
much;  the  sciences  and  trade  not  so  di- 
rectly. Yet  people  may  be  ever  so  learned, 
ever  so  pious,  and  travelled,  and  picture- 
wise,  and  yet  not  be  civilized ;  so  that  to 
square  with  his  ideal  is  no  play-day  under- 
taking. 

And  yet  it  is  a  useful  ideal  and  worth 
taking  some  thought  about.  The  people 
who  are  the  most  civilized  may  or  may  not 
be  the  worthiest  people,  but  they  are  the 

122 


Civiliiation  and  Culture 


l)leasantcst,  and  the  ones  who  seem  to  get 
the  most  out  of  life.  The  French  are  im- 
doubtedly  better  civilized  than  the  Amer- 
icans, and  given  the  same  apparatus,  they 
are  able  to  have  more  fun  with  it.  In  that 
particular  they  are  ahead  of  the  Americans ; 
yet  that  they  are  worthier  than  the  Amer- 
icans is  what  even  their  hardiest  admirer 
would  hesitate  to  aver,  and  what  no  good 
American  would  admit  for  a  moment. 
Their  capacity  for  legitimate  enjoyment 
seems  to  be  greater  than  ours — for  illegit- 
imate enjoyment,  too,  it  may  be,  but  that 
we  do  not  envy  them.  If  they  get  more 
pleasure  than  we  do  out  of  talk,  out  of 
eating  and  drinking,  out  of  art  and  music 
and  the  theatre,  out  of  family  life  and  their 
social  relations  generally,  in  respect  to  those 
matters  their  civilization  is  better  than 
ours,  and  they  are  fit  examples  for  our  em- 
ulation. 

While  "  culture,"  according  to  the  com- 
mon acceptance  of  it,  is  largely  the  culti- 
vation of  the  mind,  civilization,  as  Felix 
understands  it,  would  seem  to  be  the  cul- 
tivation of  the  sympathies,  the  tastes,  and 
123 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


the  capacity  for  giving  and  receiving  sound 
pleasures.  The  most  civilized  man  is  the 
man  with  the  most  catholic  appreciation, 
the  man  who  can  be  the  most  things  to 
the  most  people,  the  man,  to  put  it  briefly, 
who  knows  best  how  to  live.  The  man 
who  is  civilized  can  use  all  the  culture  he 
can  get,  but  he  can  get  on  and  still  be  civ- 
ilized with  a  very  moderate  outfit  of  it. 
But  the  man  who  has  culture  and  has  not 
civilization  is  very  badly  handicapped.  He 
may  get  a  certain  satisfaction  out  of  liv- 
ing, but  he  will  contribute  only  very  mod- 
erately to  the  satisfaction  of  others.  He 
may  be  respected,  but  he  will  hardly  be 
cherished. 

Provided  he  has  books  enough  and  is  of 
an  intellectual  turn,  a  man  may  get  culture 
all  by  himself,  but  he  will  hardly  get  a  high 
degree  of  civilization  except  by  rubbing 
against  other  persons.  That  is  one  reason 
why  the  most  important  of  all  civilizing 
agencies  is  the  family.  What  libraries  and 
picture-galleries  are  to  culture,  rightly  reg- 
ulated homes  are  to  civilization.  What  a 
strong  and  thoroughly  civilized  family, 
124 


Civilisation  and  Culture 


that  knows  its  business  and  improves  its 
opportunity,  can  do  toward  the  civiUzation 
of  a  raw  American  city,  can  only  be  ap- 
preciated after  long  residence  in  cities 
where  such  families  do  not  exist.  It  should 
be  an  encouragement  to  Felix  and  a  source 
of  satisfaction  to  all  of  us  that  so  sane  an 
observer  as  Dr.  Eliot,  of  Harvard,  states 
as  one  of  the  chief  bases  of  his  hopes  for 
the  duration  of  our  Republic,  that  "  a  bet- 
ter family  life  prevails  among  our  people 
than  was  known  to  any  of  the  republics 
that  have  perished,  or,  indeed,  to  any  ear- 
lier century." 

I  believe  that  my  cherished  coeval  Hoban 

Anson  would  find  comfort  in  Felix  and  his 
theories  about  civilization.  Hoban  wants 
something  very  badly  and  his  quest  after 
it  is  earnest  and  continuous,  but  I  don't 
think  he  knows  exactly  what  it  is,  and  if 
Felix  could  once  explain  to  him  that  it  was 
civilization  I  believe  Hoban  would  believe 
him.  I  think  he  recognizes  already  that 
culture  is  not  quite  the  thing  he  is  after, 
but  unless  I  mistake  he  is  a  little  afraid  still 


125 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


What  Ho. 

ban  A  nson 
finds  in 
Maine. 


that  it  ought  to  be.  He  spends  his  sum- 
mers far  down  in  Maine,  and  has  told  me 
of  the  pleasure  he  finds  there  in  the  observa- 
tion of  the  Yankee  character,  and  in  partic- 
ular of  the  pursuit  of  culture  under  difficult- 
ies by  some  of  the  Yankee  women.  Hoban 
does  not,  do  his  observing  in  any  meagre 
fortnight,  or  even  month,  wrung  from  the 
exactions  of  business,  but  devotes  whole 
summers  to  it — ^summers  that  begin  late  in 
the  spring  and  merge  liberally  into  autumn. 
The  Maine  village  which  he  affects  he  de- 
scribes as  a  place  curiously,  and,  he  thinks, 
providentially  shielded  from  the  contamina- 
tion of  the  modern  spirit  by  its  geographical 
location.  It  had  a  vigorous  marine  life  of 
its  own  before  railroads  were  invented,  and 
is  so  placed  that,  though  a  railroad  might 
come  to  it,  it  could  not  advantageously  pass 
through  it.  So  the  life  has  not  run  out  of 
it,  as  it  has  out  of  many  once  prosperous 
New  England  villages,  and  it  has  kept  much 
of  its  old  Yankee  stock  in  something  like 
its  old  Yankee  vigor.  Hoban  says  for  one 
thing  that  the  Yankee  voice,  as  he  hears  it 
there,  has  not  the  nasal  tones  that  are  com- 
126 


Civilisation  and  Culture 


monly  credited  to  it,  but  is  clear  and  agree- 
able, but  still  Yankee  in  its  inflections,  and 
perhaps  in  its  drawl.  Besides  that,  he 
finds  Yankee  humor  and  Yankee  independ- 
ence very  sturdy  in  quality,  but  qualified 
with  a  philosophical  spirit  and  a  patient, 
thrifty  unwillingness  to  allow  sentimental 
considerations  to  stand  overmuch  in  the 
way  of  lawful  gain.  But  what  interests 
him  as  much  as  anything  is  the  survival  of 
the  old  Puritan  conscientiousness,  modified 
in  its  manifestations  and  transmogrified  in 
its  alms,  but  still  persistent  and  effectual. 
As  usual  it  is  more  obvious  in  the  women 
than  in  the  men,  and  it  compels  them  rather 
to  intellectual  than  spiritual  flights.  He 
complains  that  in  their  passion  for  self- 
improvement  they  set  themselves  awful  tasks 
of  reading,  and  labor  through  long,  hard 
books  with  very  much  of  the  dreary  per- 
sistence with  which  their  forebears  sat  in 
cold  meeting-houses  under  interminable 
discourses.  Hoban  is  a  product  of  Boston, 
and  has  come  to  middle  life  without  any 
very  protracted  evasions  of  the  atmosphere 
of  his  nativitv.     I  have  known  him  to  read 


127 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


long  books  himself,  but  it  seems  to  distress 
him  that  these  Yankee  women  should  de- 
vote to  such  tasks  so  much  time  and  toil 
that,  he  thinks,  might  be  more  profitably 
employed.  He  told  me  that  one  of  them 
said  to  him:  "Oh,  Mr.  Anson,  I  do  so 
envy  you  the  opportunities  for  intellectual 
society  that  Boston  must  afford,"  whereat 
he  had  the  grace  to  blush,  remembering 
that  almost  the  only  overt  indication  of 
intellectuality  that  he  gave  at  home  was  a 
constant  and  outspoken  dissatisfaction  with 
Boston  newspapers,  and  a  greedy  preference 
for  those  of  New  York.  He  does  not  con- 
demn this  Yankee  eagerness  for  culture  nor 
deny  that  it  bears  some  good  fruit,  but  he 
seems  to  feel  that  in  some  degree  it  is  a 
misdirected  zeal,  and  that  the  fruits  of  it 
are  not  as  filling  at  the  price  as  they  ought 
to  be. 

One  civilizing  agency  which,  I  dare  say, 
is  operative  in  that  Maine  village  where 
Hoban  goes,  but  which  is  getting  all  too 
scarce  in  regions  where  culture  is  on  top, 
Hymns.  is  liymus.  Your  experience  may  be  differ- 
ent, but  the  social  circle  in  which  I  move 
128 


Civilisation  and  Culture 


is  self-contained  and  unemotional  to  a  de- 
gree that  seems  to  preclude  hymns,  and  I 
rarely  hear  them  any  more,  except  when  I 
go  to  church.  Then  they  are  not  sung, 
but  * '  rendered  ' '  by  surpliced  specialists, 
into  whose  harmonies  my  ear  may  venture 
but  not  my  voice.  We  are  superior  to  a 
good  many  things  in  our  set,  and  to  hymns 
among  others.  Are  hymns  out  of  fashion, 
do  you  know,  among  the  best  people? 
When  I  was  young  we  had  them  at  home 
as  regularly  as  bread  and  butter ;  but  then 
we  had  family  prayers  too,  and  observed 
other  ceremonies  which  now  seem  to  be 
growing  obsolete.  I  don't  visit  in  any  fam- 
ily where  they  sing  hymns,  except,  to  be 
sure,  the  family  where  I  first  heard  them. 
I  confess  that  I  visit  comparatively  few  fam- 
ilies, and  those  comparatively  worldly ; 
but  I  often  go  out  to  supper  on  Sunday 
night  with  people  who  have  been  to  church 
during  the  day,  and  I  hear  no  hymns.  The 
impression  I  gather  is  that  there  is  more 
beer  and  champagne  in  the  world  than 
there  was  twenty-five  years  ago,  and  not  so 
much  devotional  music ;  but  one  has  al- 
129 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


ways  to  be  on  his  guard  not  to  confuse  per- 
sonal changes  with  terrestrial  movement, 
and  especially  not  to  mistake  the  signs  of 
one's  own  individual  degeneration  for  marks 
of  the  world's  progress.  I  do  not  especi- 
ally deprecate  the  beer,  but  I  miss  the 
hymns.  They  echo  very  pleasantly  in  the 
memory,  and  if  the  habit  of  singing  them 
still  holds  in  Maine  that  should  be  reckoned 
as  one  of  the  advantages  of  the  aspiring 
Yankees  who  still  lead  simple  lives  there. 

I  think  we  are  quite  as  pious  in  this  gen- 
eration as  our  forebears  were,  but  our  man- 
ifestations, though  not  less  sincere  than 
theirs,  seem  to  be  less  overt.  Most  of  us 
go  to  church,  but  we  do  not  seem  to  attach 
the  same  importance  to  it  as  they  did,  nor 
to  go  quite  so  conscientiously.  It  is  more 
of  a  habit  with  us  and  less  of  a  duty,  and  if 
we  find  what  seems  a  better  occupation  for 
a  particular  Sunday  morning,  our  con- 
sciences do  not  smite  us  as  .sharply  as  con- 
sciences did  thirty  years  ago.  We  are 
more  apt  than  our  fathers  were  to  think 
that  we  know  more  about  religion  than  the 
preacher  does;  and  it  may  be  that  our  im- 
130 


Civilisation  and  Culture 


pressions  in  that  regard  have  foundation,  for 
the  latest  news  about  matters  of  faith  comes 
to  us  just  as  promptly  as  it  does  to  him,  and 
if  it  recommends  itself  to  our  belief  there 
is  less  to  retard  our  acceptance  of  it. 

Bat  if  we  are  less  sure  than  our  parents 
were  of  getting  our  hymns  in  church,  we 
ought  to  be  less  willing  to  forego  them  at 
home.  It  is  painful  to  think  of  one's  chil- 
dren growing  up  without  hymns  or  hymn 
tunes  in  their  heads,  but  that  very  thing 
may  happen  to  them  unless  fit  measures  are 
taken  betimes.  The  words  of  many  modern 
popular  hymns  are  absurd,  and  do  violence 
to  any  reasonable  person's  intelligence ;  but 
the  great  hymns  are  sound  poetry  set  to 
sound  music,  and  though  the  sentiments  of 
some  of  them  do  not  altogether  accord  with 
the  religious  convictions  of  this  enlightened 
generation,  the  greater  number  are  as  avail- 
able now  as  they  ever  were,  and  the  sanest 
singer  need  not  mumble  the  words  or  make 
mental  reservations  as  he  sings  them. 

I  believe  that  Felix,  with  his  convictions 
of  the  need  of  civilization,  and  Hoban, 

131 


Cousin  Atithony  and  I 


with  his  misgivings  about  culture,  would 
both  agree  with  those  informants  who  tell 
me  that  one  of  the  most  reassuring  spec- 
tacles to  be  seen  in  New  England  last  spring 
was  my  old  friend  and  coeval,  Robin  Ab- 
ner,  out  on  his  lawn  of  an  afternoon,  in- 
Robin  Ab-    structiug  and  exercising  his  son  Charles  in 

ner  trains  -      .      ,  .  ,,,,_,  , 

his  son  the  art  of  pitching  a  baseball,  rame  and 
wealth  crown  the  successful  pitcher  now, 
but  there  is  no  sordid  taint  about  Robin's 
ambition  for  his  son.  His  purpose  is  that 
Charles  shall  be  a  civilizing  agency  in  the 
shape  of  an  unsalaried  pitcher  on  the  Har- 
vard nine,  and  I  daresay  that  Charles  will 
realizeit.  Robin,  in  his  day,  had  aspirations 
of  that  sort  for  himself.  I  remember  him 
twenty  odd  years  ago  on  the  ball-ground  at 
Exover.  The  day  I  got  my  first  sight  of 
him,  he  was  playing  right  field  on  the  junior 
nine.  He  was  long  and  strong  and  had 
yellow  hair  —  practically  yellow  (he  has 
none  now — practically  none) — and  if  his 
father  had  begun  early  and  taken  pains  with 
him,  as  he  is  doing  with  Charles,  I  have  no 
doubt  that  he  would  have  made  a  great 
baseball  player,  and  possibly  a  pitcher  for 
132 


Civili:^ation  and  Culture 


the  Harvard  nine.  As  it  was  he  was  a  fair 
player,  but  never  eminent,  for  it  was  war- 
time when  he  was  growing  up,  and  his 
father,  a  great  patriot  and  leader  of  men, 
was  too  busy  prodding  Massachusetts  on  to 
Richmond  to  give  Robin's  athletic  educa- 
tion the  attention  it  deserved.  It  made  no 
vital  difference,  for  Robin  came  out  strong 
as  it  was. 

You  remember  the  story  of  how  Chiron 
the  Centaur  had  the  raising  of  Jason,  and  of 
the  pains  he  took  to  make  him  shoot  straight 
with  the  bow  and  arrow.  I  dare  say  that 
the  antediluvians  who  lounged  in  Chiron's 
back-yard  on  afternoons  when  he  and  Jason 
had  their  target  up,  were  conscious  of  very 
much  such  sensations  of  reassurance  as  I 
get  from  the  reports  of  Robin  and  Charles. 
When  a  serious -minded,  burden  -  bearing 
man  of  business  like  Robin  quits  work 
to  teach  his  son  to  pitch  a  ball,  it  makes  me 
feel  as  if  things  were  going  to  continue  and 
progress,  and  as  if  the  next  generation  might 
be  good  for  something,  and  able  to  have 
some  fun  in  spite  of  the  growth  of  cities, 
and  the  spread  of  trolley-cars,  and  socialism 

133 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


and  realism,  and  the  new  woman,  and  the 
concentration  of  wealth,  and  the  multipli- 
cation of  walking  delegates,  and  all  the 
varieties  of  devilment  that  solemnize  the 
world's  prospects.  It  makes  it  easier  for 
me  to  hope  that  the  learned  gentleman 
named  Nordau,  who  argues  with  so  much 
plausibility  about  the  demoralization  and 
decadence  of  all  of  us  folks,  is  needlessly 
alarmed. 

If  Robin  were  teaching  Charles  modern 
football,  I  should  have  my  doubts  about 
Robin's  views  of  the  future,  and  whether  he 
thought  it  best  that  Charles  should  live  to 
grow  up.  But  baseball,  a  safe  and  stable 
and  patriotic  sport,  is  different,  and  the 
prospect  that  excellence  in  it  is  to  become 
hereditary  in  the  Abner  family  helps  me  to 
believe  in  the  transmission  of  all  sorts  of 
sturdy  virtues,  and  the  development  of  many 
a  good  inheritance  of  strength.  If  the 
world  wasn't  a  good  world,  and  wasn't  go- 
ing to  keep  on  being  habitable,  Robinwould 
not  care  whether  Charles  learned  baseball  or 
not.  Yet  there  he  is  with  his  coat  off  catch- 
ing Charles's  deliveries  off  of  imaginary  bats, 

134 


Civilisation  and  Culture 


and  chiding  him  energetically  when  the  ball 
goes  wild. 

I  hope  Robin  will  make  a  good  thing, 
athletically,  out  of  Charles.  My  son  Nico- 
demus  is  growing  up  also,  and  though  he 
is  of  a  contemplative  nature,  and  seems  to 
prefer  sitting  down  to  more  active  exercises, 
I  allow  myself  to  hope  that  when  Charles 
Abner  stands  in  the  pitcher's  box  on  the 
Soldier's  Field  my  Nicodemus  will  be  there, 
and  will  be  making  a  good  report  on  the 
benches. 


135 


X 


ARCADIA     AND     BEL- 
GRAVIA 


ARCADIA    AND     BEL- 
GRAVIA 

CONTEMPORARY  story-tell- 
er, who  lays  the  scene  of  his 
narrative  in  Newport,  reminds 
the  reader  that  it  was  the 
Newport  of  departed  days,  "  not  the  para- 
dise of  cottages  and  curricles,  but  of  big 
hotels  and  balls,  of  Southern  planters,  of 
Jullien's  orchestras  and  hotel  hops."  New- 
port had  not  become  Belgravia  then,  but 
was  something  like  Arcadia  still. 

I  daresay  that  Belgravian  Newport  is 
amply  satisfactory  to  its  denizens  as  it  is;  Beigravia's 
but  there  is  that  in  the  coloring  of  the  menton 
story  which  reminds  one  to  lament  not 
only  the  loss  of  the  Arcadian  Newport,  but 
the  general  and  inevitable  tendency  of  all 
the  more  charming  summer  Arcadias  to 
take  on  the  Belgravian  characteristics. 
Arcadia  is  ever  unstable.  It  begins  by 
being  sylvan.     The  shepherds  wear  flan- 

139 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


nel  shirts,  and  the  shepherdesses  go  about 
in  big  hats  and  tennis  shoes,  and  wear 
the  same  dress  all  day  long,  and  scarcely 
venture  to  tie  a  ribbon  to  their  crooks. 
Quickly  Arcadia  gets  the  fame  of  being 
a  pleasant  place.  People  are  so  friendly 
there ;  manners  are  so  easy  and  so  good. 
Chaperons  are  scarce  and  high,  and  no 
one  cares,  for  such  Eden-like  simplicity 
prevails  that  chaperons  are  not  needed. 
Before  long  the  people  who  have  been 
overdosed  with  conventionalities  and  are 
tired  of  fine  raiment  hear  of  it.  Word  gets 
around  that  some  of  the  nicest  people  go  to 
Arcadia,  and  that  there  is  no  place  where 
the  girls  have  more  fun,  or  where  the  youth 
are  more  eligible,  or  from  which  everybody 
brings  home  a  finer  color  or  better  spirits 
in  the  fall.  But  what  is  money  for  if  not 
to  enable  its  owners  to  enjoy  the  newest 
delights  ?  So  soon  as  Arcadia's  charms 
begin  to  be  noised  abroad  the  place  begins 
to  be  the  fashion.  New-comers  create  new 
needs,  and  soon,  far  too  soon,  the  shep- 
herdesses are  getting  their  gowns  from 
Watteau  and  changing  the  ribbons  on  their 
140 


Arcadia  and  Belgravia 


crooks  four  times  a  day.  The  hotel  quad- 
ruples in  size,  and  is  crammed  full  of  Syb- 
arites. Gradually  the  original  Arcadians 
realize  that  society  has  grown  too  miscel- 
laneous, and  begin  to  put  up  separate  huts 
and  withdraw  to  them.  Then  the  Syba- 
rites discover  that  the  hotel  is  primitive  and 
countrified,  and  straightway  build  them- 
selves cottages  with  rooms  for  many  ser- 
vants and  stables  for  troops  of  quadrupeds. 
Then  comes  the  short-tailed  horse,  and  the 
British  groom  multiplies  in  the  landscape. 
Champagne  and  chaperons  surge  in,  hand 
in  hand.  Simplicity  goes  elsewhere  and 
sells  her  abandoned  tenement  to  Style,  who 
jjulls  it  down  and  puts  up  a  palace  on  its 
site.  And  so  Arcadia  fades  away  and  the 
sign  "  Belgravia"  looms  up  in  large  letters 
at  the  railroad  station. 

And  what  becomes  of  all  the  true  Ar- 
cadians who  were  happy  once  together  ? 
Some  build  fine  houses  on  their  property 
and  rent  them  to  Belgravians  and  go  away 
themselves  for  the  summer.  Some  put  their 
sheep  in  charge  of  a  hireling  and  supply 
the  cottagers  with  spring  lamb.  Some  hang 
141 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


up  their  crooks  and  go  into  the  real-estate 
business,  but  many,  perhaps  most  of  them, 
are  corrupted  and  turn  Belgravians  them- 
selves. For  Belgravian  existence  has  an 
intoxicating  quality  about  it  tliat  is  able  to 
upset  the  discretion  of  people  who  ought  to 
know  better.  Even  for  the  rich  it  is  fairly 
debatable  whether  Belgravia  is  so  happy  a 
land  as  Arcadia,  and  for  the  poor  there  is 
no  question  at  all  about  Arcadia's  superi- 
ority. Yet  it  is  constantly  happening  to 
the  worthy  poor  whose  choice  has  been  Ar- 
cadia, to  have  the  Belgravian  current  turn 
their  way  and  sweep  them  off  their  legs. 
Belgravia  is  so  insinuating.  For  what  it 
lacks  of  being  picturesque  it  makes  up  in 
being  fine.  Its  standards  are  mere  arbi- 
trary conventions,  and  yet  once  one  gives 
in  at  all  to  them  they  quickly  come  to  have 
the  force  of  natural  law^.  Inch  by  inch, 
substituting  elegance  for  mere  comfort  and 
show  for  simple  use,  it  lures  the  would-be 
Arcadian  into  a  competition  wherein  it  is 
a  weariness  to  engage  and  an  embarrass- 
ment to  succeed.  There  are  certain  kinds 
of  nuisances  against  which  the  promoters  of 
142 


Arcadia  and  Belgravia 


Arcadias  take  pains  beforehand  to  provide, 
selling  land  only  for  uses  and  under  con- 
ditions which  they  deem  compatible  with 
their  general  purposes.  But  they  never 
provide  against  the  chances  of  a  Belgravian 
degeneration.  They  stipulate  that  no  hut 
of  less  than  a  certain  value  shall  be  built 
upon  the  lots  that  they  sell,  but  they  never 
limit  the  prospective  builder  the  other  way. 
His  edifice  must  come  up  to  the  prevailing 
standard,  but  nothing  hinders  him  from  so 
far  surpassing  it  as  to  make  all  his  neighbors 
feel  that  the  conditions  of  their  existence 
are  squalid.  Arcadias  have  been  spoiled 
as  Arcadias  without  ever  reaching  the  full 
measure  of  Belgravian  development.  Pro- 
moters must  know  that,  but  they  never 
guard  against  it.  If  the  current  sets  Bel- 
graviaward  they  take  the  chances  of  arrival, 
lamenting  nothing,  and  seeming  to  feel,  in 
business-like  obtuseness,  that  simplicity  has 
achieved  its  highest  end  if  it  has  paved  the 
way  for  fashion. 

In  the  summer  and  autumn  landscape  of 
the  passing  hour  one  finds  two  compara- 

143 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


tively  new  features,  in  the  appreciation  of 
which  Belgravians  and  Arcadians  have  come 
closer  together  than  has  been  their  wont. 
Two  new      Neither  feature  is  brand  new.    One  has  been 
'CTtke"      growing  more  and  more  familiar  for  a  whole 
landscape,    (jg^ade  Until  now  it  is  everywhere.     That  is 
the  all -conquering  bicycle,  which  goes  per- 
sistently on  its  gainful  course,  holding  its 
adherents,  and  daily  gaining  new  victims. 

The  bicycle's  advance  has  been  so  grad- 
ual, so  noiseless,  and  so  easy  that  it  is 
doubtful  if  American  society  appreciates 
what  it  is  about  or  what  are  its  possibihties. 
Starting  as  a  toy,  and  continuing  on  a  dem- 
ocratic basis  as  a  means  of  transportation 
for  the  comparatively  poor,  it  has  worked 
its  way  steadily  on  and  up.  Sportsmen 
have  scoffed  at  it ;  horsemen  have  flouted 
it ;  high  dignitaries  of  the  church  have  de- 
nounced it  to  their  women  adherents  ;  solid 
citizens  have  held  it  to  be  a  nuisance  on  the 
highway ;  timid  people  have  deprecated  its 
presence  on  the  sidewalk,  but  it  has  rolled 
along  practically  unhindered,  increasing  in 
numbers,  growing  in  popularity,  until  now 
it  disputes  with  the  horse  for  the  patronage 
144 


Arcadia  and  Belgravia 


of  fashion.  It  is  time  to  take  the  bicycle 
seriously,  as  a  thing,  like  the  cotton-gin, 
the  steam-engine,  the  telegraph,  and  the 
sewing-machine,  that  is  to  have  an  effect 
upon  society. 

As  an  annihilator  of  space  it  is  the  able 
coadjutor  of  the  railroad.  It  deals  with 
details,  covering  the  distances  which  are 
too  far  to  walk,  and  the  ground  which  the 
steam-engine  sweeps  one  past  before  he 
knows  it.  The  ground  one  goes  over  on 
a  bicycle  he  does  know,  hence  it  promises 
to  bring  back  to  human  acquaintance  the 
numberless  nooks  and  corners  of  the  civil- 
ized earth  that  the  locomotive  rushes  by, 
and  which  have  sunk  out  of  ken  since  steam 
travel  became  universal.  It  is  still  a  toy 
in  some  hands,  but  it  is  also  a  great  vehicle, 
giving  every  performer  (where  the  roads 
are  good)  an  available  door-yard  at  least 
ten  miles  square,  and  making  fresh  air  and 
exercise  more  easily  obtainable.  At  the 
same  time  it  amuses  the  rider,  and  every- 
body knows  how  important  it  is  that  with 
one's  air  and  exercise  a  share  of  amusement 
should  be  thrown  in. 

145 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


But  the  most  startling  tendency  of  the 
bicycle  is  its  effect  upon  woman.  As  sure 
as  taxes,  or  the  destruction  of  the  peach 
crop,  or  anything  that  is  inevitable,  it  is 
about  to  emancipate  that  suffering  creature 
from  the  dominion  of  skirts.  No  woman 
of  sense  will  ever  discard  skirts  altogether. 
They  are  far  too  seemly  and  becoming  for 
that.  But  woman  has  marked  the  bicycle 
for  her  own,  and  no  woman  can  ride  on  a 
bicycle  without  discovering  that  skirts  have 
their  place  and  their  uses,  and  that  there 
are  times  and  situations  where  they  are  in 
the  way.  The  habit  of  sea-bathing  has 
done  much  to  break  down  the  tyranny  of 
women's  clothes.  Bicycles  will  do  the  rest. 
Already  the  divided  skirt  is  used  by  women 
on  horseback  without  exciting  the  behold- 
er's dismay,  but  that  is  not  a  fashion  that 
gives  assurance  of  extensive  growth.  But 
that  the  woman  who  rides  bicycles  will 
wear  knickerbockers  is  a  bit  of  concluded 
destiny ;  that  once  having  found  them  ac- 
ceptable for  one  form  of  exercise  she  may 
find  them  convenient  for  divers  others  is 
very  possible,  and  yet  not  appalling,  since 
146 


Arcadia  and  Belgravia 


knickerbockers  do  not  look  ill.  That  she 
will  dance  in  them,  or  dine  in  them,  is  not 
likely  enough  to  givQ  anyone  valid  grounds 
for  anxiety,  but  once  she  has  learned  how, 
she  will  wear  them  without  compunction  on 
fit  occasions  where  skirts  too  much  restrain, 
as  when  she  plays  golf. 

For  the  other  new  feature  of  the  land- 
scape is  golf.  Golf  has  been  threatening 
to  cross  the  seas  these  last  five  years.  It 
came  unobtrusively,  and  this  year  has  fairly 
taken  root  and  spread  itself.  All  the  coun- 
try clubs  have  it.  Veteran  tennis-players 
have  cast  aside  their  bats  and  taken  up 
with  "  drivers  "  and  "  putting-irons,"  and, 
more  extraordinary  still,  horsemen  of  ma- 
ture convictions  are  found  tramping  around 
golf-links  day  after  day  and  spending  the 
solid  evening  hours  bragging  of  the  strokes 
they  made,  and  raising  futile  lamentations 
over  scores  spoiled  by  wanton  misses.  One 
does  not  fully  realize  the  fascination  of  golf 
until  he  has  heard  it  talked  by  confirmed 
horsemen  in  times  when  they  might  be 
talking  horse.  It  commends  itself  as  a  se- 
rious sport,  fit  to  engage  the  well-preserved 

147 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


but  not  too  boisterous  energies  of  the  mid- 
dle-aged, suitable  for  stout  men  to  apply  to 
the  correction  of  obese  tendencies,  and  yet 
not  too  violent  for  the  spare  frames  of  the 
thin.  It  is  neither  dangerous  nor  costly, 
and  yet  the  philosophical  mind  finds  satis- 
faction in  it,  while  the  sportsman  admits 
that  it  possesses  the  indispensable  qualities 
of  a  true  game.  There  can  be  little  doubt 
that  it  will  possess  all  America  as  tennis 
has.  It  has  the  best  literature  of  any  known 
game,  which  is  due  possibly  to  its  Scotch 
origin,  and  the  instruments  with  which  it 
is  cultivated  are  of  so  fascinating  an  aspect 
that  the  palm  instinctively  itches  to  clutch 
them  and  see  how  they  work.  Once  seen, 
golf  cannot  be  forgotten  ;  once  experienced, 
it  will  not  be  neglected.  It  has  fairly  got 
us  now,  and  it  may  be  trusted  to  keep  us. 

The  element  of  companionship  enters 
seriously  into  golf.  It  enters  considerably 
into  most  games,  so  that  the  majority  of 
us  care  more  whom  we  play  with  than 
what  we  play.  But  one  could  play  tennis 
with  any  player  whose  skill  approximated 
to  his  own  without  much  thought  of  his 
148 


Arcadia  and  Belgravia 


personal  idiosyncrasies,  for  the  net  yawns 
and  stretches  between  tennis-players,  keep- 
ing them  apart ;  and  while  they  are  play- 
ing the  action  is  too  lively  to  permit  the 
communication  of  anything  but  the  ball. 
But  a  fit  person  to  play  tennis  with  is  one 
thing  and  a  thoroughly  satisfactory  person 
to  play  golf  with  is  another.  Ivan  Putter, 
in  whose  society  I  had  the  good  fortune  to 
be  thrown  last  summer,  was  such  a  person. 
This  summer  I  did  not  have  the  advantage 
of  his  company,  and  at  many  holes  I  have 
grieved  over  our  separation  with  wistful 
appreciation  of  his  qualities  as  a  golfer. 
It  is  true  that  he  was  no  very  great  shakes 
with  his  clubs.  I  could  drive  farther  than 
he  could  and  put  about  as  well,  and  though 
I  did  not  win  more  than  my  share  of 
games  from  him,  I  had  always  the  solace 
of  being  persuaded  that  he  was  not  really 
in  my  class  at  golf,  and  that  any  day  when 
I  was  really  myself  and  playing  my  game 
I  could  beat  him.  Somehow  I  was  seldom 
myself  and  rarely  played  my  game,  where- 
as his  game,  such  as  it  was,  he  was  usually 
able  to  put  up,  so  that  the  disparity  be- 
149 


Cousin  Anthony  and  J 


tvveen  my  estimate  of  his  skill  and  my 
opinion  of  my  own  was  not  a  real  hin- 
drance to  our  rivalry.  But  irrespective  of 
his  abilities  with  drivers  and  mashies  he 
had  traits  of  surprising  value.  For  one 
thing  he  is  an  excessively  lazy  man,  and 
always  arranged  beforehand  for  a  good 
supply  of  caddies  both  for  himself  and  me, 
and  he  trained  his  caddies  —  which  were 
casual  boys  picked  up  haphazard — so  well 
that  they  were  an  example  to  mine,  and  the 
standard  of  efficiency  of  the  whole  squad 
was  high.  Then  he  usually  spent  the  even- 
ing in  reading  the  golf  rules  and  in  making 
himself  an  authority  on  points  of  etiquette 
and  play,  with  the  result  that  my  head 
was  as  little  troubled  with  knowing  the 
rules  as  it  was  with  knowing  the  caddies. 
He  took  his  game  seriously,  never  trifling 
with  a  stroke,  exulting  when  he  made  a 
good  one,  grieving  when  he  didn't,  and 
working  hard  all  the  time.  And  when  he 
wasn't  attending  to  his  own  game  he  was 
paying  close  attention  to  mine.  That  was 
perhaps  his  greatest  charm.  When  it  was 
my  drive  he  waved  out  the  fore  caddies, 

150 


Arcadia  and  Belgravia 


advised  me  as  to  my  tee,  and  stood  over 
the  stroke.  If  it  was  a  good  one  it  was 
doubly  glorious.  If  it  was  a  miss  or  a 
foozle  he  helped  me  swear.  His  interest 
kept  mine  always  warm,  so  that  I  held 
almost  as  much  of  my  breath  over  his 
strokes  as  he  over  mine.  He  insisted  on 
perfect  order  in  turns,  and  indeed  on  every 
propriety  the  rules  suggested  ;  and  when 
there  was  a  ball  lost  he  abandoned  it  with 
the  same  reluctance  when  it  was  mine  as 
when  it  was  his. 

A  railroad  crosses  the  links  where  Ivan 
Putter  habitually  plays.  Mindful  of  his  de- 
liberation, I  have  dreaded  all  summer  to 
hear  that  he  had  been  run  over  by  the  cars 
between  the  cow-pasture  and  the  home 
hole.  But  I  hope  he  may  be  spared,  for 
since  I  played  with  him  I  have  played 
with  other  men,  men  who  scurry  helter- 
skelter  across  the  fields,  chasing  their  balk 
like  terriers  after  tom-cats,  men  who  know 
few  rules  and  respect  not  those,  men  who 
pay  little  attention  to  their  own  play  and 
none  to  mine,  triflers,  scorners  of  etiquette, 
ignorant  and  without  a   standard.     They 

151 


Cousin  Anthony  and  1 

mean  well  enough,  poor  gentlemen,  but 
how  I  wish  they  might  be  apprenticed  for 
a  time  to  Ivan  Putter  and  learn  to  temper 
their  methods  with  some  of  the  graces  of 
his  admirable  spirit. 

Not  the  simplicity  of  Arcadia,  nor  the 
luxury  of  Belgravian  Newport  or  Belgra- 
vian  Lenox,  not  the  attractiveness  of  new 
and  sylvan  bicycle  paths,  nor  the  superla- 
tive merits  of  a  seashore  golf  links  can  avail 
for  more  than  one  or  two  short  months 
to  delude  the  summer  vacationer  from  the 
city  about  the  intensity  of  his  own  gregari- 
ous instincts.  Any  doubts  he  may  have 
had  about  it  are  apt  to  be  rudely  dis- 
pelled, when,  after  his  month  by  the  sea 
or  in  the  country,  he  first  strikes  a  con- 

IVhenthe         .  ,        ,  ,  \ 

Arcadian     siderable   town.      It  need  not  be  such  a 

gets  back  to  ,  .  ,  ,  .  .   ,       , 

t(nvn.  very  big  town,  but  only  a  city  with  the  or- 

dinary appliances  of  city  life,  with  hotels 
that  are  real  hotels,  not  summer  hotels; 
with  shops,  newspapers,  and  people.  It 
is  really  pitiable  to  see  the  poor  creature's 
satisfaction  in  finding  the  commonest  ap- 
purtenances of  urban  existence  within  his 

152 


Arcadia  and  Belgravia 


reach.  The  most  ordinary  sights  bear  a 
friendly  aspect  to  him.  The  members  of 
the  Salvation  Army  that  he  sees  in  the 
streets  seem  to  him  like  old  acquaintances. 
The  cigar -store  Indians  are  his  long-lost 
brothers.  'I'he  conventional  ornaments  of 
the  drug-stores,  the  soda-water  fountains, 
and  awful  instruments,  and  sponges,  and 
patent-medicine  boxes  that  garnish  those 
repositories,  seem  cheerful  and  alluring  to 
him,  and  the  familiar  drug-store  smell  rises 
in  his  nostrils  like  the  very  breath  of  life. 
There  are  barber  shops — he  can  have  his 
locks  trimmed  ;  there  are  saloons — he  can 
quench  his  thirst  ;  there  are  bookstores — 
he  can  learn  what  progress  literature  has 
made  during  his  absence  from  the  world, 
and  can  look  at  the  outsides  of  the  newest 
books  and  supply  himself  with  all  the  latest 
magazines.  It  rejoices  him,  as  he  dodges 
a  trolley-car,  to  find  his  instinct  of  self- 
preservation  still  unimpaired.  A  bicycler 
grazes  him  as  he  whizzes  by,  and  he  swears 
more  in  glee  than  in  irritation.  Poor  de- 
generate creature,  after  viewing  God's  crea- 
tion  for  a  month  man's  poor  appliances 

153 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


possess  a  new  charm  for  him.  The  visions 
he  had  in  June  of  the  dehghts  of  a  life- 
long communion  with  nature  have  faded 
out,  and  he  rejoices  that  his  lot  has  been 
cast  in  the  haunts  of  men.  Even  his 
work,  that  he  had  come  so  to  despise,  has 
charms  for  him  again,  and  he  thinks  with 
relief,  and  even  with  enthusiasm,  of  hav- 
ing a  desk  to  return  to  every  morning, 
and  of  the  set  task  which  is  to  occupy  his 
active  Jiours  and  relieve  him  of  the  obli- 
gation to  choose  between  rival  forms  of 
laborious  amusement. 

Bless  the  man  !  Don't  imagine  that  the 
merits  and  blisses  and  attractions  which  he 
sees  in  cities  really  exist.  Don't  suppose 
that  the  sight  of  the  blue  sea  or  the  blue 
hills  is  not  intrinsically  better  than  any 
sights  he  will  find  in  town.  It  is  just  a 
case  of  cxlum  non  animum,  that's  all.  He 
is  a  bundle  of  habits  like  all  of  us,  and  it 
is  because  he  is  getting  back  to  his  habits 
that  he  rejoices.  He  is  a  machine,  and 
however  it  may  benefit  him  now  and  then 
to  stop  for  a  time  and  repair  his  several 
parts,  he  is  happiest  on  the  whole  when  he 

154 


Arcadia  and  Belgravia 


is  running,  and  he  runs  easiest  and  most 
profitably  in  the  place  that  he  has  learned 
to  fit.  He  may  pose  for  a  few  weeks  every 
year  as  a  human  creature,  but  the  truth 
is  that  he  is  a  mere  appliance,  and  best 
off,  as  his  own  instincts  tell  him,  in  the 
place  where  he  can  best  be  applied. 


155 


XI 

OURSELVES  AND  OTHER 
PEOPLE 


OURSELVES  AND  OTHER 
PEOPLE 

WRITER  in  a  contemporary 
American  magazine  who  com- 
pares English  and  American 
home  Hfe  says  that  the  most 
striking  difference  is  that  the 
chief  end  of  an  English  home  is  the  com- 
fort of  the  man,  but  the  chief  end  of  an  English 
American  home  is  the  comfort  of  the  worn-  "American 
an.  That  accords  with  American  tradi-  '*"'""• 
tion  about  the  manners  and  customs  of  the 
English,  and  probably  it  is  as  nearly  true 
as  epigrammatical  statements  are  wont  to 
be.  Still  one  may  wonder  whether  it  would 
not  be  almost  as  illuminating  to  suggest  that 
the  chief  end  of  English  homes  is  the  com- 
fort of  the  proprietors,  while  the  ruling 
consideration  in  American  homes  is  the 
propitiation  of  servants.  Unless  current 
information  upon  the  subject  is  misleading, 

159 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


both  master  and  mistress  in  an  English 
home  can  buy  much  more  domestic  com- 
fort than  the  same  expenditure  could  gain 
for  them  in  America  ;  and  that  mainly  for 
the  trite  reason  that  English  servants  are 
better  trained,  more  easily  procured,  and 
cheaper  than  in  America.  The  P'rench 
Government  lately  proposed  to  raise  an  an- 
nual revenue  of  twenty-five  million  francs 
by  a  tax  on  domestic  servants,  to  be  paid 
by  their  employers.  The  tax  is  reported 
to  be  extremely  unpopular  among  the  ser- 
vants, who  say  that  they  will  have  to  pay 
it  in  the  end;  and  the  assertion  that  there 
are  forty  thousand  of  them  out  of  employ- 
ment in  Paris  indicates  such  a  condition 
of  the  domestic  labor  market  as  seems  to 
give  a  substantial  basis  to  their  fears. 
Americans  would  smile  at  the  idea  of  be- 
ing taxed  for  their  servants.  A  bounty 
on  each  one  would  better  suit  the  senti- 
ments of  the  average  American  house- 
keeper. Not  that  life  in  the  homes  of 
well-to-do  Americans  is  such  a  savage  ex- 
perience, or  that  servants  are  not  indis- 
pensable in  such  homes,  or  that  the 
1 60 


Ourselves  and  Other  People 

house-keeper  blames  them  for  what  neither 
she  nor  they  can  help  at  present,  or  that 
she  undervakies  their  work;  but  merely 
because  they  are  hard  to  get,  hard  to  man- 
age, and  hard  to  keep,  and  expensive,  and 
she  wishes  she  did  not  have  to  have  them. 
The  Englishman's  idea  of  domestic  com- 
fort may  be  an  establishment  with  a  dozen 
servants,  but  the  average  American  wom- 
an's ideal  is  very  few  servants  and  good, 
and  no  more  of  an  establishment  than  they 
are  willing  to  take  care  of  for  her. 

The  English  way  of  having  comfort  with 
servants  is  to  have  plenty  of  them,  assign 
them  definite  tasks  and  not  more  than  they 
can  do  well,  feed  them  cheaply,  and  pay 
them  low  wages.  The  American  way  is  to 
have  fewer,  feed  them  more  expensively, 
pay  them  much  higher  wages,  and  expect 
a  greater  and  less  definite  amount  of  ser- 
vice. The  Englishman  is  satisfied  with  his 
method,  provided  he  can  gather  income 
enough  to  carry  it  out.  But  the  American 
is  not  satisfied,  and  a  tolerably  ample  pro- 
vision of  funds  does  not  cure  his  dissatis- 
faction. He  does  not  think  he  gets  his 
i6i 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 

money's  worth  of  comfort,  and  it  is  quite 
possible  that  he  is  right. 

There  will  be  a  cure  presently  for  this 
predicament,  but  it  will  not  come  on  any 
considerable  scale  through  a  closer  approx- 
imation of  his  domestic  methods  to  those 
of  the  English.  It  will  have  to  be  a  cure 
that  will  be  quite  as  popular  with  the  ser- 
vants as  with  the  masters.  The  grand- 
children of  this  generation  will  get  more 
domestic  comfort  for  less  money  than  their 
grandparents  did,  and  one  reason  why  will 
be  that  they  will  have  a  much  more  accu- 
rate notion  of  what  they  want  and  what 
they  are  entitled  to.  Standards  of  living 
will  be  much  more  definite  in  America  two 
generations  hence.  Servants'  rights,  duties, 
privileges,  and  wages  will  all  be  better  de- 
fined. House-keepers  will  know  much  more 
exactly  and  without  need  of  personal  ex- 
perience what  scale  of  living  their  incomes 
can  support.  Rents  will  be  lower,  and 
there  will  be  a  better  notion  than  now  as 
to  what  household  luxuries  and  conveni- 
ences are  really  luxuries  and  conveniences, 
and  what  are  mere  showy  impediments  to 
162 


Ourselves  and  Other  People 


domestic  comfort.  With  a  great  and  grow- 
ing body  of  intelligent  people  anxious  to 
work,  and  an  increasing  number  anxious  to 
have  certain  work  done  for  them,  the  ad- 
justment of  the  supply  of  labor  to  the  de- 
mand is  bound  to  be  perfected.  And  yet 
it  will  be  an  American  adjustment,  with 
somewhat  less  servihty  in  it  than  in  the 
English  method,  and  characterized,  as  all 
other  American  labor  is,  by  the  superior 
efficiency  of  the  persons  employed. 

Among  other  vexed  questions  relating  to 
personal  service  which  we  may  hoj^e  to  see 
settled  in  that  glad  coming  time  when 
everybody  will  know  more  than  anyone 
knows  now  is  the  matter  of  "  tips."  It 
needs  settling,  for  it  is  a  good  deal  discussed 
and  opinion  is  divided  upon  it.  Not  long 
ago  a  contemporary  scribe  in  discussing  the 
employment  of  college  students  as  waiters  in 
summer  hotels  complained  of  "  the  avidity 
with  which  they  accept  money  from  people 
who  are  their  intellectual  and  social  in- 
feriors." It  was  this  writer's  conviction 
that  "  no  person  of  refined  sensibilities  will 
163 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


accept  a  '  tip.'  "  Now,  to  be  over-eager 
for  fees  is  not  consistent  either  with  self-re- 
spect or  with  good  service,  but  there  seem 
to  be  good  reasons  to  differ  from  the  opin- 
ion that  to  accept  gratuities  offered  in  rec- 
ognition of  personal  services  is  necessarily 
inconsistent  with  a  serviceable  degree  of 
refinement. 

As  between  a  self-respecting  guest  and  a 
The  ethics  self-rcspccting  servant,  a  fee  is  not  a  bribe, 
of  uips.'  j^yj.  ^^  expression  of  appreciation.  It  is  a 
tangible  way  of  saying  Thank  you  !  When 
a  gentleman  has  been  a  guest  in  another 
gentleman's  house,  and  his  comfort  has 
been  a  special  charge  of  certain  of  his  host's 
servants,  the  fees  he  may  choose  to  give 
those  servants  when  he  goes  away  simply 
say  that  he  appreciates  their  care  of  him, 
and  is  grateful.  Such  fees  are  not  alms,  nor 
are  they  bribes  ;  they  discharge  an  obliga- 
tion which,  whether  it  actually  exists  or  not, 
is  recognized  as  equitable  by  the  departing 
guest.  Fees  of  that  sort,  freely  and  cor- 
dially given,  and  expressive  of  good-will, 
are  a  source  of  satisfaction  to  the  giver,  and 
it  is  not  apparent  why  they  should  not  be  a 
164 


Ourselves  ami  Other  People 

perfectly  legitimate  source  of  satisfaction  to 
the  receiver  also. 

It  is  true  that  when  the  departing  guest 
comes  to  say  good-by  to  his  host  he  does  not 
tip  him.  He  thanks  him  for  his  hospitality, 
and  very  likely  expresses  the  hope  that  he 
may  soon  be  able  to  return  it  in  kind.  He 
has  toward  his  host  a  feeling  of  obligation 
analogous  to  what  he  has  toward  his  host's 
servants.  He  knows  that  first  or  last  he 
will  get  even  with  his  host  by  showing 
him  some  courtesy  or  doing  him  some  ser- 
vice, but  the  chances  are  that  unless  he 
discharges  the  obligation  he  feels  to  the 
servant  by  a  material  gift  on  the  spot 
no  other  opportunity  to  requite  him  will 
offer. 

The  "  tip  "  given  to  a  servant  by  an  ap- 
preciative guest  is  given  to  the  office  rather 
than  to  the  individual.  It  is  not  charity, 
and  to  accept  it  need  not  necessarily  offend 
the  self-respect  of  the  most  self-reliant  per- 
son. There  is  no  lack  of  other  vocations 
besides  "  service  "  in  which  fees,  more  or 
less  gratuitous,  are  given  without  the  slight- 
est loss  of  self-respect  on  either  side.     The 

i6s 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


clergyman  who  marries  a  couple  gets  a  fee, 
and  is  entitled  to  it,  but  whether  it  is  five 
dollars  or  five  hundred  depends  entirely  on 
the  feelings  and  pecuniary  abilities  of  the 
groom.  To  perform  the  marriage  cere- 
mony, even  when  it  includes  the  salutation 
of  the  bride,  isn't  very  hard  work,  and  it 
would  be  reasonable  to  say  that  anything 
over  twenty-five  dollars,  or  perhaps  less, 
that  the  clergyman  gets  is  in  the  nature  of 
a  gratuity.  But  whether  his  fee  is  fifty  dol- 
lars or  a  hundred,  he  never  feels  obliged  to 
send  any  part  of  it  back.  It  is  given  to  his 
office  rather  than  to  himself,  and  his  office 
enables  him  to  accept  it  without  remorse 
or  impropriety.  To  stickle  for  a  large  fee 
would  be  decidedly  improper.  A  well-be- 
haved clergyman  does  not  permit  his  mind 
to  dwell  unduly  on  his  marriage  fees  one 
way  or  the  other,  and  he  is  ready  to  marry 
folks  as  securely  and  reverently  without 
money  or  price  as  he  would  for  the  most 
lavish  remuneration.  But  what  fees  come 
to  him  unsolicited  he  puts  into  his  pocket 
cheerfully  and  without  a  qualm,  conscious 
that  the  laborer  is  worthy  not  only  of  his 
i66 


Ourselves  and  Other  People 

hire,  but  of  any  casual  pecuniary  barnacles 
that  happen  to  stick  to  it. 

And  so  with  the  office  of  servant.  It  is 
called  a  humble  office,  but  it  is  as  capable 
as  any  other  of  being  adorned  in  the  man- 
ner of  its  discharge.  The  best  servant  is 
the  one  who  is  most  successful  in  promot- 
ing the  comfort  of  the  people  he  serves. 
If  he  appreciates  the  possibilities  of  his 
office  and  lives  up  to  them,  there  is  no 
reason  why  the  casual  emoluments  of  it 
should  burn  his  fingers.  If  he  spends  him- 
self generously  in  his  work,  he  has  no  more 
valid  reason  to  feel  humiliated  by  the  offer 
of  a  fee  than  the  clergyman  is  when  the 
best  man  hands  him  an  envelope.  If  his 
sensibilities  are  too  refined  to  permit  him 
to  accept  fees,  that  is  not  a  merit,  but  a 
defect,  and  he  is  that  much  less  fit  for  the 
place  that  he  holds.  A  servant  who  de- 
mands fees  or  whose  usefulness  is  measured 
by  the  acuteness  of  his  expectations  is  a 
nuisance  and  an  imposition,  but  a  servant 
to  whom  a  considerate  guest  cannot  express 
a  sense  of  gratitude  has  a  defective  concep- 
tion of  his  job. 

167 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


If  a  man  or  a  woman  doesn't  want  to 
serve  for  money,  and  can  find  means  of 
avoiding  it,  by  all  means  let  them.  But  if 
any  one,  even  a  person  of  the  most  refined 
sensibilities,  undertakes  to  be  a  servant,  it 
is  better  for  such  a  one  to  try  to  be  the  best 
servant  possible,  accepting  the  casual  emol- 
uments of  the  office  with  the  same  good- 
will with  which  he  undertakes  his  duties. 

No  doubt  the  Japanese,  whose  example 
in  so  many  particulars  is  nowadays  so  freely 
held  up  for  our  emulation,  have  considered 
the  question  of  tipping  and  come  to  some 
conclusion  about  it  which  it  might  be  ad- 
vantageous for  us  to  know.  We  hear  very 
much  of  the  Japanese,  and  most  of  what  we 
hear  is  greatly  to  their  credit.  They  have 
many  nice  qualities  and  a  fair  share  of 
jafanese  g^cat  oucs.  They  are  clean,  they  are  polite, 
and  apparently  they  are  very  gentle  and 
very  brave.  They  are  said  to  be  exceed- 
ingly neat,  too,  and  to  be  bountifully  en- 
dowed with  that  sense  of  propriety,  a  de- 
fective development  of  which  accounts  for 
much  of  the  rubbish  on  American  streets 
x68 


tnanners. 


Ourselves  and  Other  People 

and  most  of  the  disagreeableness  of  Ameri- 
can street-car  travel.  They  certainly  beat  us 
in  a  good  many  things.  Intelligent  foreign- 
ers who  have  observed  us  closely  have  de- 
clared that  we  are  the  rudest  and  the  kind- 
est people  in  the  world.  Of  course  it  is  a 
pity  that  we  are  not  more  universally  cour- 
teous ;  that  our  children  are  not  demure 
and  orderly  like  the  Japanese  children ; 
that  we  throw  papers  into  the  street  and 
drop  peanut-shells  and  orange-peel  on  the 
floors  of  our  public  conveyances.  Of  course 
it  is  a  pity  that  we  are  not  more  like  the 
Japanese  in  many  particulars  ;  but,  for  my 
])art,  I  make  lx)ld  to  confess  that  American 
manners,  with  all  their  defects,  are  better 
suited  to  my  American  taste  than  Japanese 
manners  with  all  their  gentle  perfections. 

When  Nature  finds  bark  necessary  for 
the  protection  of  her  growths  it  may  be 
noticed  that  she  always  applies  it  to  the 
outside.  Our  manners  are  to  a  certain 
extent  our  bark,  and  though  it  is  by  no 
means  necessary  that  it  should  be  disagree- 
ably rough  or  scraggy,  it  .seems  not  a  thing 
to  be  altogether  deplored  that  what  we 
169 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


have  of  it  we  should  choose  to  wear  as  the 
trees  do,  externally  and  in  sight.  When 
Nature  leaves  the  bark  thin  she  is  apt  to 
provide  thorns,  and  if  one  must  make  a 
choice  between  the  two  means  of  protec- 
tion, it  may  be  excusable  to  prefer  the 
bark  which  one  can  recognize  afar  off,  to 
the  thorn  which  draws  blood  without 
warning. 

We  are  quite  accustomed  to  the  tradi- 
tional disparagement  of  the  French  as  a 
people  in  whom  a  superficial  politeness  is 
developed  at  some  cost  of  more  indispen- 
sable merits,  but  the  politeness  of  the 
Japanese  being  a  trait  of  comparatively 
recent  observation,  seems  to  be  accepted 
without  much  consideration  of  its  cost. 
It  is  worth  much,  but  it  does  cost  some- 
thing. For  one  thing,  travellers  tell  us 
that  it  takes  a  prodigious  amount  of  time. 
Japanese  etiquette  takes  no  note  of  the 
hands  of  the  clock,  or  the  rising  or  the 
setting  of  the  sun.  Japanese  business  seems 
not  to  be  very  much  prompter.  Time  in 
Japan  is  estimated  at  its  Eastern  value.  We 
are  told,  too,  that  Japanese  courtesy  con- 
170 


Ourselves  and  Other  People 


demns  even  such  a  reasonable  candor  as 
would  permit  one  in  polite  conversation  to 
acknowledge  that  he  held  an  opinion  dif- 
ferent from  one  his  friend  had  expressed, 
and  that  letters  are  not  punctuated  in  Ja- 
pan because  it  would  seem  to  imply  igno- 
rance in  the  recipient.  There  can  scarce- 
ly be  such  an  extreme  softness  of  con- 
duct without  some  sacrifice  of  downright 
honesty. 

American  manners  are  not  nearly  as  good 
as  they  should  be,  not  nearly  as  good  as 
one  may  hope  they  may  become,  but  that 
Japanning  would  profit  them  is  not  so 
certain  as  it  looks  at  first  sight,  even  if  it 
did  not  involve  a  much  greater  amount  of 
self-repression  or  self-obliteration  (doubtless 
more  apparent  than  actual)  than  the  Amer- 
ican temperament  could  endure  or  has  any 
desire  to  attain  to.  The  amelioration  of 
our  national  demeanor  must  rather  be 
sought  in  an  increased  and  enlightened 
self-control  joined  to  a  strengthened  self- 
respect.  If  we  ever  do  become  civilized, 
it  will  be  first  at  the  heart  and  afterward  at 
the  rind. 

171 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


If  we  had  been  imitative  enough  to  learn 
manners  by  observation,  we  might  have 
profited  more  by  what  we  have  seen  of 
the  French,  but  an  obstacle  to  that  has 
Reputed  long  existed  in  the  shape  of  a  vulgar  senti- 
^traits!  ment  about  the  French  people,  held  main- 
ly by  Englishmen  and  Americans  under 
the  shadow  of  English  thought,  which  was 
tersely  though  somewhat  crudely  expressed 
by  the  man  who  became  dissatisfied  with 
the  conduct  of  a  French  waiter  in  a  res- 
taurant and  noted  the  ever-recurring  solace 
he  found  in  the  belief  that  all  Frenchmen 
when  they  died  would  go  to  hell.  The 
author  of  "French  Traits"  has  been  at 
pains  to  make  it  clear  that  this  conception 
of  the  destination  of  the  French  is  prob- 
ably erroneous,  and  is  based  on  ignorance 
of  French  character.  He  boldly  main- 
tains that  the  French  are  not  wicked  in  all 
the  particulars  in  which  they  differ  from 
the  English,  but  in  some  are  merely  dif- 
ferent. Especially,  he  points  out,  the 
Frenchman  has  the  social  instinct  in  a 
degree  that  the  Anglo-Saxon  can  neither 
aspire  to  nor  easily  comprehend,  and  many 
172 


Ourselves  and  Other  People 


details  of  conduct  which  we  attribute  to 
the  defects  in  his  character  are  really  due 
to  the  exceptional  development  of  his 
solidarity.  Thus,  if  he  is  somewhat  quer- 
ulous and  unduly  prone  to  vociferation, 
that  is  not  because  he  is  really  more  quar- 
relsome than  his  Anglo  -  Saxon  neighbor, 
but  that,  thanks  to  his  dependence  on  his 
fellow,  his  wrath  evaporates  in  language, 
whereas  British  individualism  comes  to 
blows.  And  if  his  moral  sense,  and  even 
his  moral  conduct,  digresses  from  the 
British  ideal,  that  is  due,  if  not  directly  to 
his  solidarity,  at  least  to  the  same  causes 
that  have  made  him  the  social  creature 
that  he  is. 

It  is  a  great  comfort  to  a  humane  mind 
of  Anglo  -  Saxon  perversions,  to  find  out 
these  peculiarities  of  the  French,  and 
learn  to  regard  their  future,  whether  in 
this  world  or  the  next,  with  hopefuller  an- 
ticipations. So  much  relief  comes  to  a 
benevolent  intelligence  from  a  comprehen- 
sion of  the  reasons  that  exist  for  believing 
that  a  great  contemporary  people  are  not 
so  wholly  abandoned  as  they  seem,  that  it 

173 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


naturally  occurs  to  try  the  same  prescrip- 
tion for  the  cure  of  what  seem  to  be  anal- 
ogous cases.  And  in  particular  there  are 
the  Irish.  Some  of  us  Americans  and  many 
of  our  British  cousins  are  worried  about 
the  Irish.  We  Americans  especially  are 
liable  to  forebodings  that  they  are  too  quar- 
relsome, or  too  improvident,  or  too  im- 
perfectly veracious,  or  too  something  else 
to  make  up  into  American  citizens  of  the 
proper  standard.  How  immensely  reas- 
suring it  would  be  to  all  of  us  who  want 
to  hold  the  best  opinion  that  is  tenable  of 
our  fellow-countrymen,  if  some  one,  tak- 
ing a  leaf  out  of  "  French  Traits,"  would 
take  the  pains  to  demonstrate  that  the 
Irish  have  got  solidarity,  too,  and  that 
there  is  nothing  really  the  matter  with 
them,  but  only  something  different.  To 
say  that  the  French  are  all  going  to  the 
bow-wows,  and  the  Irish  are  in  some  re- 
spects very  like  them,  is  one  thing.  But 
to  say  that  the  French  have  the  eminently 
precious  and  respectable  quality  called  sol- 
idarity in  a  condition  of  exalted  develop- 
ment, and  the  Irish  have  it  also,  is  quite  a 

174 


Ourselves  and  Other  People 

different  sentiment.  As  fast  as  we  learn  to 
feel  like  that  about  it  we  are  filled  with  an 
increasing  eagerness  to  take  the  Celt  to  our 
bosoms,  and  enjoy  the  benefits  of  solidarity 
at  his  expense. 

If  the  Irishman  had  not  some  qualities 
that  were  exceptionally  worth  investiga- 
tion, we  Americans  would  not  have  him  so 
much  on  our  minds.  His  political  im- 
portance in  this  country  would  not  be  so 
disproportionate  to  his  numbers  and  his 
wealth,  unless  there  were  some  points  in 
which  he  had  the  advantage  of  the  rest  of 
the  population.  Is  it  not  really  his  solid- 
arity, nursed  and  developed  by  the  same 
Catholic  Church  that  has  helped  the  same 
development  in  France,  that  enables  him 
to  carry  the  ward,  and  prove  himself 

The  very  pulse  of  the  machine, 

while  his  Yankee  brother,  wrapt  in  his  in- 
dividualism, looks  on  somewhat  jealously, 
and  wonders  how  it  is  done  ! 


175 


XII 

PROFIT  AND   LOSS 


PROFIT   AND   LOSS 

UR  vigilant  newspapers  keep 
close  track  of  the  great  sales 
of  pictures  and  brie -i- brae 
which  occur  from  time  to 
time  in  Europe,  and  give 
daily  reports  of  the  more  important  articles 
bought,  and  the  prices  paid  for  them.  It 
might  seem  as  if  such  reports  were  of  inter- 
est only  to  collectors,  and  very  rich  col- 
lectors at  that,  for  the  total  sum  realized 
at  such  sales  often  runs  up  into  the  mil- 
lions, and  the  average  price  of  single  pieces 
often  approaches  a  thousand  dollars.  Nev- 
ertheless, it  is  edifying  for  a  philosopher  of 
moderate  income  to  follow  them,  because  of 
the  important  testimony  they  give  of  the 
vast  number  of  expensive  things  that  peo- 
ple who  cannot  afford  to  buy  them  can  get 
along  just  as  comfortably  without.  The  can'dJwu'h- 
assurance  that  millions  of  dollars  can  easily  ""  ' 
179 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


be  spent  for  things,  no  one  of  which  is  in- 
dispensable, or  even  highly  important,  to 
human  happiness,  is  always  fit  to  make  the 
citizen  whose  circumstances  are  merely 
moderate  less  restless  in  the  circumscribed 
limits  of  his  earthly  lot.  To  have  all  the  Spit- 
zer  treasures  sold,  and  not  to  have  bought 
even  one  of  them,  and  still  to  find  life  re- 
munerative and  satisfactory,  is  a  gainful  ex- 
perience, and  one  worth  some  newspaper 
reading  to  acquire. 

An  experience  of  the  same  sort  was  pos- 
sible at  the  Chicago  fair.  There  one  saw 
thousands  of  beautiful  and  costly  objects  fit 
to  delight  the  eye  and  stimulate  the  imagi- 
nation. To  see  all  and  to  buy  nothing, 
and  still  to  come  home  justified  and  con- 
tent, richer  for  what  one's  mind  could 
carry  away  and  very  little  poorer  in  one's 
pocket,  was  a  possibility  which  was  within 
every  fair -goer's  reach,  and  which  the 
great  majority  realized.  And  it  was  worth 
realizing,  if  only  for  its  use  in  helping  them 
to  recognize  the  agreeable  truth  that  the 
material  things  that  are  essential  to  satis- 
factory existence  are  comparatively  few 
I  So 


Profit  and  Loss 


and  comparatively  cheap.     The  capacity  to 

recognize  that,  vividly  and  practically,  is 
an  acquirement  fairly  comparable  in  value 
with  accumulations  in  the  bank. 

Moreover,  it  is  a  feasible  acquirement. 
It  can  be  taught.  There  is  no  certain  pos- 
sibility of  making  a  phenomenal  money- 
getter  out  of  even  an  exceptionally  intelli- 
gent boy,  but  it  is  fairly  within  the  province 
of  education  so  to  train  a  lad  that  he  can 
get  more  pleasure  and  far  more  profit  out 
of  a  little  money  than  another  of  inferior 
training  can  out  of  much.  To  be  "  passing 
rich  on  fifty  pounds  a  year  "  is  an  accom- 
plishment not  readily  attainable  in  the 
present  state  of  money  values  ;  but  to  be 
richer  on  five  thousand  dollars  a  year  than 
another  man  is  on  fifty  thousand  may  not 
be  as  easy  as  lying,  but  it  is  easy  enough. 
The  necessaries  of  life  are  food,  shelter,  and 
raiment;  the  more  important  luxuries  are 
cleanliness,  books,  society,  good  clothes, 
and  a  reasonable  amount  of  leisure.  In 
order  to  live  his  best,  man  wants  time  to 
think  and  plenty  to  think  about.  A  mod- 
erate amount  of  travel  is  a  luxury  that  en- 
i8i 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


livens  the  intellectual  processes  and  is 
favorable  to  health.  All  the  necessaries 
are  easily  procurable  in  these  days,  and 
none  of  the  reasonable  luxuries  are  very 
dear.  The  things  that  cost  much  money 
are  chiefly  those  that  delight  the  eye,  and 
gratify  not  so  much  by  use  as  by  mere  pos- 
session. One  does  not  have  to  own  rich 
things  to  enjoy  them.  The  very  best  of 
them  are  in  public  collections,  and  abun- 
dance of  others,  in  private  hands,  are  not 
hard  to  get  a  sight  of  It  is  more  or  less 
the  same  with  that  other  grade  of  superflu- 
ities to  which  belong  horses  and  yachts, 
truffles,  pate  de  foie  gras,  terrapin,  canvas- 
back  ducks,  champagne,  English  grooms, 
valets,  and  everything  that  contributes  to 
make  idleness  palatable.  There  is  un- 
doubtedly some  fun  to  be  had  with  these 
objects,  which  do  possess  a  certain  sort  of 
intrinsic  value  ;  but  it  is  true  of  some  of 
them,  as  it  is  of  vases  and  pictures,  that 
you  can  get  the  usufruct  of  them  without 
owning  them,  since  if  a  man  drives  two 
grooms  and  four  horses  it  costs  you  nothing 
to  see  him  go  by.     For  the  rest  it  may  be 


Profit  and  Loss 

said  that  there  is  just  as  much  enjo}Tiient  of 
a  different  sort  to  be  had  without  these 
things,  and  whether  the  cheaper  or  the 
more  expensive  pleasures  are  really  prefer- 
able is  simply  a  matter  of  education  and 
taste.  Consideration  of  the  ease  with 
which  the  five-thousand-a-year  man  can  go 
without  every  one  of  the  luxuries  for  which 
his  neighbor,  who  has  fifty  thousand  a  year, 
spends  four-fifths  of  his  income,  is  fit  to 
give  the  reflecting  observer  some  useful 
ideas.  The  life  of  a  family  on  two  hundred 
dollars  a  year  is  immensely  superior  to  ex- 
istence on  one  hundred.  Life  on  five  hun- 
dred is  a  vast  improvement  on  life  on  two 
hundred.  Life  on  a  thousand  a  year  is 
much  easier  and  more  satisfactory  than  life 
on  five  hundred.  Life  on  five  thousand  is 
still  simple  enough,  and  offers  more  oppor- 
tunities and  better  ones  than  life  on  one 
thousand,  and  brings  more  leisure  and 
seems  more  desirable  on  many  grounds. 
But  then  the  consumption  of  superfluous 
luxuries  has  already  begun,  and  possibly 
the  point  has  already  been  passed  that  was 
coveted  by  the  ancient  who  desired  neither 

183 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


The  cost  of  poverty  nor  riches.  It  would  be  a  duller 
""«-r-  world  if  no  one  could  spend  more  than  five 
thousand  a  year,  and  far  be  such  a  condi- 
tion from  obtaining.  Still,  having  even 
no  more  than  that,  there  is  no  general  cer- 
tainty that  increased  expenditures  will  buy 
the  money's  worth  ;  that  they  will  make 
life  more  wholesome  or  more  satisfying 
to  the  expenders ;  that  they  will  promote 
health  or  the  development  of  character,  or 
cause  love  and  peace  any  more  to  abound. 
Enough  may  not  be  as  good  as  a  feast. 
Indeed,  it  isn't.  But,  even  if  it  consists 
merely  of  oatmeal  and  boiled  eggs,  it  may 
easily  be  immensely  better  than  a  steady 
diet  of  feasting.  Somewhere  between  a 
hundred  dollars  a  year  and  unlimited 
means,  money  ceases  to  be  a  means  of  buy- 
ing what  is  good  for  you  and  becomes  an 
opportunity,  which  grows  more  and  more 
difficult  to  improve  as  its  size  increases,  un- 
til, if  worse  comes  to  worst,  it  may  assume 
the  proportions  of  an  impossible  task. 

But,  of  course,  there  are  always  multi- 
tudes of  us  who  are  not  only  willing  to  un- 
184 


Profit  ami  Loss 


dertake  that  task,  but  are  constantly  on  the 
lookout  for  chances,  the  shrewd  improve- 
ment of  which  ma}'  possibly  advance  us  to- 
ward a  position  where  we  may  test  its  haz- 
ards and  drawbacks.  Few  people  hope  to 
get  rich  by  the  slow  process  of  earning  and 
saving,  but  there  are  multitudes  of  us  whose 
imaginations  are  equal  to  the  feat  of  fore- 
casting the  amplification  of  our  resources 
by  judicious  investment.  There  is  a  great 
deal  that  is  queer  about  investors.  They 
have  peculiar  characteristics,  or,  perhaps,  it 
would  be  nearer  right  to  say  that  the  occu- 
pation they  follow  has  jieculiar  character- 
istics which  they  illustrate.  There  have 
been  many  good  men  since  Colonel  New- 
come's  time  who  have  been  bad  investors, 
and  many  bad  men  who  have  been  good 
investors.  I  suppose  there  have  also  been, 
and  are,  many  good  men  who  are  good  in- 
vestors, and  whose  investments  have  not 
involved  them  in  conduct  at  variance  with 
the  rules  of  ethics  that  ordinarily  govern 
good  conduct.  Very  astute  men  they  must 
be,  or  very  lucky,  or  both. 

A  person  who  had  been  invited  to  invest 
i8s 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


a  sum  of  money  in  a  project  which  prom- 
ised gratifying  returns,  was  disposed  to  do 
so,  but  bethought  him  to  advise  first  with 
an  investor  of  large  experience.  The  in- 
vestor's advice  was  adverse,  partly  because 
he  learned  that  his  inquirer  had  no  money 
in  hand  and  convenient  to  lose,  and  partly 
because  the  project  did  not  altogether  please 
him.  One  of  his  objections  that  impressed 
the  inquirer  was  this.  He  said:  "It  is 
not  listed  stock,  and  not  easily  marketable. 
If  it  starts  to  go  wrong,  you  can't  get  rid 
of  it.  Now,  if  it  were  something  that  you 
could  dump  on  the  market  when  it  began 
to  weaken,  you  could  get  back  part  of  your 
money  at  least." 
Investors  Now,  the  adviser  was  a  man  in  whose  in- 

and  their  .,..,, 

morals.  tegrity  the  mquirer  had  very  great  confi- 
dence, for  he  knew  him  to  be  a  church- 
warden, as  well  as  president  of  a  bank.  He 
noted,  therefore,  as  a  fit  thing  to  be  re- 
marked, that  a  man  of  whom  more  than 
ordinary  scrupulousness  was  to  be  expected, 
took  it  as  a  matter  of  course  that  an  inves- 
tor whose  investment  seemed  likely  to  prove 
disastrous  should  get  out  from  under  it  with 
i86 


Profit  and  Loss 

the  least  possible  delay,  and  try  to  let  the 
loss  fall  on  someone  else.  He  didn't  mind 
this  sentiment  in  the  bank  president,  but  in 
the  church-warden  it  seemed  a  misfit,  as 
being  contrary  to  the  Golden  Rule.  Yet 
he  was  perfectly  aware  that  it  was  a  senti- 
ment of  all  but  universal  prevalence,  and 
that  it  was  exceedingly  unbusinesslike  to 
cavil  at  it.  So  he  went  his  way  and  event- 
ually took  two-thirds  of  his  friend's  advice, 
in  that  he  only  invested  in  the  project  that 
he  was  considering  a  third  of  what  he  orig- 
inally hoped  to  put  in.  It  happened  just 
as  the  bank  president  said,  that  when  the 
bottom  fell  out  of  the  project  (which  hap- 
pened cruelly  soon)  there  was  no  getting  rid 
of  that  stock  at  any  price.  But,  so  far  as 
that  went,  the  investor  averred  to  himself 
that  he  was  glad  of  it,  and  he  really  got  a 
good  deal  of  solace  out  of  the  feeling  that, 
whatever  was  the  size  of  his  financial  mis- 
conception, at  least  he  was  going  to  pay 
the  whole  cost  of  it  himself. 

It  is  a  very  common  thing  for  people  to 
lament  that  they  did  not  get  rid  of  this  or 
that  proi^erty  before  its  value  depreciated. 
187 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


Of  course,  what  they  are  really  sorry  for  is 
that  they  could  not  have  contrived  to  sad- 
dle their  loss  on  someone  else.  It  is  a  sign 
of  the  imperfection  of  contemporary  benev- 
olence that  good  people  should  have  such 
feelings  and  should  regard  them  as  matters 
of  course.  They  are  humorously  unchris- 
tian. The  utmost  the  average  investor- 
moralist  enjoins  is  that  a  man  shall  not 
**  unload  "  upon  his  friends.  He  cannot  so 
much  as  imagine  a  scruple  about  selling  out 
cadescent  stocks  in  open  market. 

It  will  not  be  so  when  the  millennium 
comes.  Property  will  continue  then,  as 
now,  to  fluctuate  in  value,  but  the  prospect 
of  a  depression  will  no  longer  strike  the 
owner  as  a  good  reason  for  selling  out.  His 
superior  moral  sense  will  then,  as  now,  be 
sometimes  profitable  to  his  estate,  since 
property  doesn't  always  depreciate  as  much 
as  is  expected,  and  often  in  the  end  it  re- 
covers more  than  it  lost.  But  the  great 
advantage  from  a  business  point  of  view  of 
the  perfected  altruism  will  be  the  emanci- 
pation of  the  altruist  from  panic  and  all  its 
consequences,  since  the  man  who  is  more 
iS8 


Profit  and  Loss 


ready  to  accept  his  loss  than  to  pass  it  on 
is  not  to  be  scared  into  a  foolish  sacrifice 
by  the  shadow  of  it  beforehand. 

What  the  investor  would  choose  is  to  put 
his  money  into  some  enterprise  which  shall 
cause  two  blades  of  grass  to  grow  where  one 
grew  before,  or  several  gold  dollars  to  come 
out  of  the  ground  in  place  of  one  that  goes 
in.  Tradition  and  experience  agree  that  a 
man  who  does  tliat  is  a  benefactor  of  his 
fellows  and  is  entitled  to  enjoy  both  the 
profits  of  his  enterprise  and  the  pleasant 
emotions  which  are  automatically  incident 
to  benevolent  acts.  But  the  average  in- 
vestor is  not  unduly  exacting,  and  if  he 
can  have  his  profits,  he  is  usually  able  to 
worry  along  without  the  consciousness  of 
benevolence.  If  he  cannot  have  his  wish 
and  make  two  blades  of  grass  grow  in  place 
of  one,  he  will  be  apt  to  consider,  if  he 
happens  to  posse.ss  broad  meadows,  that 
the  next  best  scheme  for  him  to  promote  is 
a  contrivance  through  which  it  may  come 
about  that  three  blades  of  grass  shall  be 
needed  to  do  the  work  of  two.  There  is 
a  vast  field  for  investment  in  the  work  of 
189 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


supplying  necessities  that  already  exist,  but 
another  very  pretty  line  of  business  is  that 
which  concerns  itself  with  the  invention  of 
new  necessities  and  tlie  gratification  of  their 
demands. 

It  was  in  this  latter  sphere  of  endeavor 
that  that  clever  and  successful  artist,  the 
late  Charles  Frederick  Worth,  made  a  great 
reputation  and  a  fortune  for  himself,  and 
contributed  more  or  less  directly  to  the 
provision  of  profitable  investments  for  very 
many  others.  Worth  was  pre  -  eminent 
The  expen-  amoug  all  his  contcmporaries  as  a  design- 
fashion.  ^f  of  fashions  in  women's  clothes.  In  so 
far  as  he  devised  beautiful  gowns  which 
adorned  and  beautified  the  women  who 
wore  them  he  did  well.  But  the  beautifi- 
cation  of  women  is  only  a  small  part  of  the 
business  of  the  inventor  of  fashions.  What 
he  relies  upon  for  his  pecuniary  success  is 
the  artful  cultivation  of  the  human,  and  es- 
pecially the  feminine,  passion  for  change. 
If  women  were  allowed  to  wear  their  clothes 
as  long  as  they  were  wearable,  as  men  and 
snakes  do,  thrift  would  have  a  much  bet- 
ter chance  to  develop  and  do  its  work, 
190 


Profit  and  Loss 

than  is  consistent  with  the  pecuniary  in- 
terests of  trade.  The  condition  of  servi- 
tude to  which  the  arbiters  of  fashion  have 
reduced  womankind  throughout  nearly  all 
of  Christendom  is  a  thing  that  it  mortifies 
the  spirit  to  remark.  My  Cousin  Anthony 
was  speaking  of  it  not  long  ago.  He  said 
he  was  riding  in  a  street-car  one  cold  night 
in  March  with  Mrs.  Anthony,  when  he  ob- 
served that  her  outside  garment  seemed  in- 
adequately warm.  "  For  the  first  time  it 
occurred  to  me,"  he  said,  "  that  I  did  not 
remember  to  have  seen  my  wife  in  a  fur 
coat  since  the  winter  began.  But  I  knew 
that  she  had  such  coats  in  some  variety,  so 
I  questioned  her  about  it.  Do  you  believe 
that  she  told  me  that  none  of  her  fur  coats 
had  either  sleeve-room  enough  to  admit  the 
sleeves  of  her  present  dresses,  or  skirts  of 
sufficient  length  to  meet  the  requirements  of 
the  reigning  mode  ?  So  she  had  been  com- 
pelled to  put  away  all  of  her  furs  in  camphor, 
to  lie  until  the  fashions  should  come  around, 
and  meanwhile  she  went  clad  in  such  an 
inexpensive  and  insufficient  top-garment 
as  hard  times  permitted  her  to  provide." 
191 


Cousin  Anthony  ami  I 


Mrs.  Anthony  is  a  very  sensible  woman 
who  would  not  discard  a  warm  and  hand- 
some jacket  because  of  any  mere  whim. 
The  force  that  constrains  her  to  leave  her 
furs  in  the  attic  and  go  out  on  a  cold  day 
in  a  cloth  coat  must  be  a  force  of  com- 
pelling quality,  and  effectual  to  regulate 
the  behavior  of  a  lamentably  large  per- 
centage of  the  Christian  women  of  the 
time. 

If  only  fashion  had  died  with  Worth  we 
might  mourn  for  him  with  a  better-spared- 
a- better- man  resignation  ;  but  his  accom- 
plices have  survived  him.  Fashion  will 
tyrannize  over  sorrowing  households  as  ab- 
solutely as  ever;  shivering  matrons  will 
continue  to  leave  their  last  year's  fur  coats 
at  home,  the  march  of  the  modes  will  go 
triumphantly  forward,  and  shrewd  inven- 
tors will  continue  to  profit  by  it  even 
though  penury  and  disease  may  straggle  in 
its  wake. 


192 


XIII 

CERTAIN  ASSETS  OF 
AGE 


CERTAIN  ASSETS  OF 
AGE 

RECENT  writer,  discoursing 
"On  Growing  Old,"  took 
what  seems  to  be  a  needlessly 
disparaging  view  of  that  in- 
evitable process.  He  quoted 
Cicero's  deliverances  on  the  subject,  but 
quoted  them  chiefly  to  scoff  at  what  he  af-  Some  ad- 
fected  to  regard  as  the  Roman  essayist's  "^li^fng ' 
faint  praise  of  an  indefensible  condition. 
Cicero  was  thankful  to  old  age  because  it 
diminished  his  appetite  for  food  and  drink, 
and  aggravated  his  eagerness  for  rational 
conversation  ;  but  this  contemporary  pessi- 
mist declared  his  belief  that  there  was  not 
an  old  man  of  his  acquaintance  who  would 
not  prefer  roast  fowl  and  champagne  with 
the  appetite  and  digestion  of  youth  to  the 
chance  of  conversing  at  length  with  the 
wisest  person  in  the  vicinity.     Cicero  con- 

195 


old. 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


sidered  emancipation  from  physical  appe- 
tites and  passions  as  the  best  gift  of  old  age, 
and  this  critic  admitted  that  advantage, 
and  added  to  it  the  felicity  of  escaping 
from  "  a  certain  tyranny  of  the  intellect  " 
and  the  privilege  of  having  "  no  final  con- 
victions." But  with  all  its  compensations 
conceded,  the  decline  of  life  seemed  to  him 
a  poor  thing,  and  fit  chiefly  to  bring  one 
to  a  penitential  realization  that  hfeis  a  dis- 
appointment and  vanity,  and  the  mortal 
coil  an  integument  chiefly  blessed  in  the 
shuffling. 

Now  it  was  an  amusing  circumstance  that 
this  discourse  should  have  come  out  in  print 
sandwiched  between  some  Reminiscences  of 
Emerson,  by  Dr.  Furness,  of  Philadelphia, 
and  certain  recollections  of  his  college  days 
by  Dr.  Edward  Everett  Hale.  It  appeared, 
from  reference  to  Dr.  Furness' s  article,  that 
his  experience  of  life  covered  at  that  time 
no  fewer  years  than  ninety-one.  Dr.  Hale's 
admissions  made  him  out  only  a  little  over 
seventy,  which  is  not  old  age,  to  be  sure, 
but  constitutes  a  reasonable  maturity.  Yet 
it  was  impossible  to  detect  in  the  pa- 
196 


Certain  Assets  of  Age 

pers  of  either  of  these  reverend  and  ex- 
perienced gentlemen  —  one  venerable  and 
the  other  mature  —  any  hint  or  sugges- 
tion that,  so  far  as  either  of  them  had 
gone,  he  found  any  serious  defect  in  life. 
This  is  not  conclusive  evidence,  of 
course,  but  it  is  suggestive.  It  is  partic- 
ularly suggestive  of  one  asset  of  old  age 
which  the  essayist  I  have  been  talking 
about  has  omitted  to  specify.  Everyone 
knows  what  the  tontine  system  of  life  in- 
surance is.  A  number  of  people  pay  equal 
sums  of  money  into  a  pool ;  the  amount  is 
put  out  at  interest  and  the  surviving  sub- 
scriber takes  the  accumulated  sum.  Simi- 
larly, every  man  of  letters  gradually  comes 
to  be  joint  owner  with  other  persons  of  a 
mass  of  valuable  literary  material  which 
cannot  be  used  by  any  of  the  joint  owners 
so  long  as  the  others  survive.  But  if  he 
outlives  the  rest  it  all  becomes  his,  and  he 
can  do  what  he  will  with  it,  without  fear  of 
hurting  anyone's  feelings  or  disclosing  any- 
thing that  would  work  injury  to  the  living 
or  to  the  memory  of  the  dead.  Who  is 
there  that  wTites  and  is  still  under  fifty  who 
197 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


will  not  admit  that  the  stories  he  knows  the 
best,  and  that  are  the  best  worth  telling, 
are  those  that  he  cannot  tell,  because  of  the 
score  of  people  still  on  earth  who  would 
strip  the  disguises  from  his  characters  and 
read  as  biography  what  he  designed  to  have 
pass  as  fiction  ?  Which  of  us  does  not  think 
he  might  do  a  magnum  ojnis  if  there  were 
no  lives  in  being  to  hinder  ! 

And  another  great  advantage  of  getting 
decently  old  is  the  acquisition  of  the  privi- 
lege of  loafing  without  compunctions.  In 
these  days,  provided  a  man  has  fairly  filled 
his  granary  during  the  heat  and  labor  of  his 
day  of  strength,  old  age  is  the  time  for  him 
to  travel,  to  own  a  farm,  to  collect  books 
and  china-images,  to  read  many  novels  and 
frivolous  books,  to  have  a  yacht  if  his  ac- 
cumulations will  stand  it,  and  to  work  just 
so  much  as  will  increase  his  contentment, 
and  no  more.  He  ought  to  have  income 
enough  to  play  with,  and  life  enough  left 
to  play.  If  he  hasn't,  it  is  not  the  fault  of 
old  age,  but  of  himself ;  or  possibly  it  is  his 
misfortune.  Certainly  old  men  abound 
who,  having  lived  wisely  and  well,  lack 
198 


Certain  Assets  of  Age 


neither  the  means  nor  the  disposition  to 
find  continued  felicity  in  Hfe.  Anyone  can 
recall  a  dozen  such  veterans  at  thought,  and 
it  would  be  easy  to  mention  one  or  two 
whom  everyone  knows  about,  who  in  the 
ripeness  of  their  intellectual  and  the  hale- 
ness  of  their  phj^ical  powers,  seem  to  have 
more  fun  in  a  few  minutes  than  many  dull 
youths  with  good  appetites  have  in  a  year. 

The  last  years  of  Dr.  Holmes  seemed  so 
notable  for  their  felicities  as  to  make  them 
a  shining  instance  of  what  the  closing 
period  of  life  ought  to  be. 

Dr.  Holmes  was  not  one  of  those  men  of 
whom  one  feels  that  they  should  have  lived 
to  read  their  own  obituaries,  so  as  to  have 
the  satisfaction  of  knowing  how  greatly  they 
were  esteemed.  He  has  been  so  widely  and 
cordially  appreciated  for  so  many  decades,  ^^^^"Jj"/^ 
that  all  the  columns  of  matter  the  newspa- 
pers printed  about  him  could  scarcely  have 
told  him  anything  he  did  not  know  before. 
Whether  poets  find  a  personal  pleasure  in 
the  appreciation  of  remote  posterity  is  some- 
what uncertain  ;  but  there  is  no  doubt  that 
199 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


the  clamor  of  palm  smiting  palm  is  one  of 
the  most  agreeable  sounds  that  can  fall 
upon  a  poet's  living  ear.  Dr.  Holmes  was 
one  of  the  most  intelligently  applauded 
poets  that  ever  lived.  If  his  poems  of 
occasion  are  unmatched  in  felicity,  it  is 
largely  because  they  had  the  great  good 
fortune  to  be  addressed  in  almost  every 
instance  to  audiences  of  most  exceptional 
ability  to  detect  a  hit.  Boston  has  lost  the 
dearest  and  most  loyal  of  her  old  friends. 
Give  her  credit  for  what  she  did  for  him. 
She  was  loyal  as  well  as  he.  What  he  had 
the  wit  to  write  and  to  say  she  had  the  dis- 
cernment to  appreciate.  If  Boston  had  not 
been  Boston,  Holmes  could  not  have  been 
Holmes.  A  Milton  blind  and  solitary 
could  write  "  Paradise  Lost  "  and  find  the 
rapture  of  his  own  imagination  a  sufficient 
incentive.  An  Edwards  in  a  rural  village 
scarcely  emerged  from  the  primeval  woods 
could  meditate  upon  the  nature  and  pur- 
poses of  the  Creator,  and  find  the  nature  of 
his  theme  sustain  his  efforts.  But  a  poet 
who  writes  to  please  must  have  an  audience 
that  is  worth  pleasing.  Dr.  Holmes  was  a 
200 


Certain  Assets  of  Age 


poet  of  that  sort,  and  it  was  one  of  his 
greatest  felicities  that  from  early  youth  he 
never  had  to  seek  for  fit  and  friendly 
hearers.  His  thoughts  never  went  un- 
uttered  for  want  of  ears  that  invited  their 
disclosure.  He  never  had  a  good  thought 
but  that  there  was  a  good  man  within  reach 
to  share  it  with. 

It  is  a  matter  of  accepted  tradition  that 
poets  are  born,  not  made  ;  but  not  all  the 
born  poets  are  developed.  Holmes  beyond 
question  was  a  born  poet,  but  Boston  may 
fairly  be  said  to  have  raised  him.  He  grew 
up  under  her  wing.  He  was  educated  at 
her  door.  His  first  fame  Avas  won  by  verses 
first  published  in  a  Boston  newspaper.  He 
left  her  for  a  little  while  in  early  manhood, 
but  she  hastened  to  call  him  back,  and  pro- 
vided him  with  a  congenial  task  that  suited 
his  own  needs  as  well  as  hers  and  kept  him 
by  her  ever  afterward.  It  is  not  surprising 
that  he  loved  her  or  that  she  loved  him. 
They  were  admirably  mated.  She  made 
him  happy  and  he  made  her  famous,  and 
incidentally  made  himself  famous  at  the 
same  time.    Her  occasions  were  his  oppor- 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 

tunities,  and  he  met  them  with  a  continuing 
flow  of  felicitous  response  such  as  no  poet 
of  modern  times  has  rivalled.  Wherever 
Holmes  is  known  Boston  is  known  too. 
Her  debt  to  him  is  fit  to  be  compared  to 
Scotland's  debt  to  Walter  Scott.  If  the 
long  walk  in  her  Common  and  the  gilded 
dome  of  her  State  House  are  landmarks  in 
literature  it  is  because  he  made  them  so. 
No  other  American  city  ever  had  such  a 
laureate  ;  even  Boston  herself  is  not  likely 
to  have  such  another.  The  material  for 
laureates  is  scarce  nowadays  ;  the  inspira- 
tions are  scarcer  still,  and  Boston  is  not  a 
family  of  New  Englanders  any  more.  She 
has  outgrown  that  phase  of  her  existence 
and  is  a  great  American  city,  too  big  and 
rich  and  overgrown  and  spread  out,  and 
with  too  miscellaneous  a  population  to  in- 
spire again  the  sort  of  affection  that  old 
Boston  stirred  in  Dr.  Holmes.  But  she  is 
entitled  to  the  comfort  of  remembering  that 
she  recognized  the  laureate  she  did  have, 
and  that  if  his  constancy  never  wavered, 
neither  did  her  appreciation  ever  wane. 

202 


XIV 

THE   AFTER-DINNER 
SPEECH 


THE   AFTER-DINNER 
SPEECH 

CONTEMPORARY  who  dis- 
courses from  day  to  day  with 
zest,  and  often  with  wisdom, 
on  all  topics  under  the  sun, 
said  something  the  other  day  jf^"^"^ 
about  the  after-dinner  speech.  He  pointed  ^Z*'"'^'''- 
out  how  it  must  not  be  wholly  facetious, 
nor  frivolous,  nor  silly,  nor  too  long-wind- 
ed, nor  highly  exciting,  nor  over-heavy, 
nor  ultra-argumentative,  nor  entirely  statis- 
tical, nor  in  the  least  rancorous,  but  that  it 
may  contain  some  essential  thoughts,  some 
strokes  of  humor,  some  scraps  of  knowl- 
edge, some  bits  of  fancy,  some  sound  rea- 
sons, some  good  whims,  some  green  dress- 
ing, and  a  little  fat.  He  guessed  that  as 
many  as  five  thousand  after-dinner  speeches 
had  been  made  in  New  York  during  the 
season  then  closed,  and  recorded  that  one 
205 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


man  had  made  ten  in  a  single  week  and 
three  in  one  evening.  He  said  he  had 
heard  a  few  tip-top  after-dinner  speeches, 
but  they  must  have  been  a  few  out  of  many, 
for  he  spoke  of  hearing  a  considerable  vari- 
ety of  others  that  for  stated  reasons  were 
not  tip-top.  He  remarked  that  a  good 
many  men  had  won  renown  by  making 
clever  after-dinner  speeches,  and  mentioned 
four  distinguished  New  Yorkers  among 
whom  the  palm  for  after-dinner  discourse 
was  thought  to  lie. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  after-dinner 
speech  has  grown  to  be  an  institution  of 
serious  magnitude.  Its  requisites  are  rec- 
ognized to  be  such  as  the  contemporary 
quoted  has  set  forth.  There  are  certain 
particular  things  that  ought  to  go  into  it, 
and  a  lot  of  others  that  ought  to  be  kept 
out.  To  combine  the  requisite  ingredients 
so  as  to  produce  the  proper  flavor,  and  to 
serve  the  whole  with  felicity  and  grace,  is 
a  matter  of  such  profound  dexterity,  and  so 
few  people  ever  attain  it,  that  there  seem  to 
be  reasonable  grounds  for  the  belief  that 
the  after-dinner  speech,  unqualified  by  a 
206 


The  After-Dinmr  Speech 


special  purpose,  is,  for  sober-minded  and 
responsible  citizens,  little  better  than  a 
trap.  Indeed,  there  be  those  who  hold 
that  as  an  institution  it  is  a  fetish  to  which 
our  sacrifices  are  altogether  out  of  propor- 
tion to  the  returns.  For  a  dinner  with  a 
special  purpose  some  premeditated  after- 
dinner  talk  is  doubtless  excusable.  If  we 
dine  in  the  interests  of  politics,  it  is  a  legit- 
imate part  of  the  plan  that  some  one  should 
talk  politics  to  us,  and  that  we  should  sit 
under  it.  If  we  dine  for  charity,  some  one 
has  a  right  to  talk  charity ;  and  so  analo- 
gously if  we  dine  in  the  interests  of  educa- 
tion or  trade.  But  if  we  merely  dine  for 
fun,  why  should  we  sit  under  any  one?  It 
would  seem  to  be  a  needless  disparagement 
of  the  inward  working  of  any  company  of 
gentlemen,  that  after  they  had  eaten  their 
food  it  should  be  necessary  to  have  persons 
especially  deputized  to  think  their  thoughts 
for  them.  Why  do  they  eat  ?  Why  do 
they  drink  ?  Is  it  merely  to  fatten  them  ? 
Is  it  not  that  pleasant  emotions  shall  be 
stirred  inside  of  them,  and  that  their  indi- 
vidual tongues  shall  wag  and  their  souls 
207 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


flow?  But  whose  tongue  can  wag  while 
Jones  or  Robinson  is  standing  on  his  legs 
making  oratory  for  the  company,  or  whose 
soul  can  flow  while  Smith's  psychological 
expansion  is  taking  up  all  the  space  ? 

It  is  admitted  that  when  there  is  really 
something  to  be  said  after  dinner  it  is  ex- 
cusable to  say  it,  but  there  is  no  lack  of 
evidence  that  stated  oratory,  merely  and 
exclusively  for  the  promotion  of  digestion, 
is  perilous  alike  to  the  gentlemen  who  un- 
dertake it,  and  to  the  object  which  it  is 
intended  to  effect.  For,  as  to  the  speakers, 
not  every  ordinary  after-dinner  talker  un- 
derstands that  his  function  is  to  say  noth- 
ing, but  merely  to  talk.  Some  say  some- 
thing because  they  know  no  better  ;  some 
because  they  have  not  the  gift  of  utterance 
without  communication ;  some  from  malice 
prepense  because  the  devil  prompts  them  ; 
and  some  because  they  are  carried  a%Aay  by 
the  allurements  of  the  opportunity.  There 
is  a  story  about  a  man  in  Philadelphia,  a 
physician,  who  got  up  at  a  friendly  dinner 
to  talk  digestively  about  nothing  at  all, 
when  imexpectedly,  not  being  enough  on 
208 


The  After-Dinner  Speech 


his  guard,  he  let  slip  an  idea.  Once  it  was 
loose,  he  could  not  break  away  from  it.  It 
took  possession  of  him.  In  a  minute  or 
two  he  was  standing  on  his  chair.  In  a 
couple  of  minutes  more  he  was  standing  on 
the  table,  with  all  the  after-dinner  sleepers 
wakened  up,  and  all  the  company  silenced 
and  fixed  upon  him  with  their  eyes.  He 
made  a  great  sj^eech,  the  memory  of  which 
still  survives,  but  as  an  after-dinner  speech 
it  was  a  failure,  for  it  stopped  digestion 
short  in  over  forty  Philadelphia  stomachs, 
and  a  dozen  worthy  gentlemen  went  to 
bed  that  night  with  dyspejKia. 

And  besides  the  risk  of  saying  some- 
thing, there  is  always  the  hazard  of  saying 
the  wrong  kind  of  nothing.  That  is  a  jieril 
to  which  serious-minded  men  are  particu- 
larly exposed,  and  is  the  one  to  which,  a 
year  or  two  ago,  Justice  Brewer  and  Justice 
Brown,  of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court, 
fell  victims.  Justice  Brewer,  it  seems,  went 
to  a  Yale  dinner  somewhere  during  the 
Christma.s  holidays,  and  appreciating,  per- 
haps, tlie  propriety  of  suiting  his  discourse 
to  his  auditors,  he  said  things,  the  condem- 
209 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


nation  of  which  greatly  abounded  in  the 
newspapers  for  some  time  afterward.  So 
with  Justice  Brown,  who  was  charged  with 
sacrificing  to  his  after  -  dinner  necessities 
the  sacred  dignity  of  the  very  bench  on 
which  he  sat,  and  with  making  aUusions  to 
his  brotlier  judges  fraught  with  reprehen- 
sible gayety.  It  was  not  really  the  fault  of 
these  worthy  and  learned  men  that  they  got 
into  such  a  scrape.  The  blame  belonged  to 
an  undiscriminating  institution  which  ex- 
acts intellectual  skirt-dancing  from  elephan- 
tine intelligences. 

Of  the  personal  distress  which  after-din- 
ner oratory  brings  on  the  unaccustomed 
after-dinner  orator,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to 
speak.  Most  of  us  know  too  much  about 
that  from  personal  experience.  Between 
the  necessity  of  saying  something  and  the 
obligation  to  say  nothing  in  particular ;  be- 
tween the  need  of  drinking  enough  to  be 
fluent  and  the  importance  of  not  drinking 
enough  to  be  incoherent ;  between  the  ob- 
ligation to  be  entertaining  and  the  hazard 
of  being  indigestible,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  broken  rest  and  an  uneaten   dinner 


The  After-Dinner  Speech 


sliould  be  the  raw  orator's  lot.  When  he 
has  become  thoroughly  hardened  he  doesn't 
mind.  But  think  of  the  cost  of  hardening 
him  !  It  is  another  case  of  the  hatful  of 
spoiled  eyes  which  bought  the  oculist  his 
experience. 

For  all  the  sorrowful  hours  which  the 
contemporary  American  has  spent  or  may 
live  to  spend  sitting  under  after-dinner  or- 
ators who  know  not  what  to  say  nor  when 
to  stop,  he  has  himself  to  blame.  The 
Constitution  guarantees  him  a  fair  chance 
for  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happi- 
ness.    But — 

' '  who  would  be  free 
Themselves  must  strike  the  blow." 

If  he  insists  upon  thrusting  his  neck  under 
the  yoke,  he  must  drag  the  load.  If  he  in- 
sists upon  toughening  the  natural  tender- 
ness of  the  budding  orator  till  it  is  callous 
to  his  squirming,  he  must  sit  under  him  to 
the  bitter  end.  If  he  begins  by  sitting 
courteously  under  the  considerate  Smith,  if 
he  sits  submissively  under  the  judicious 
Jones,  if  he  sits  cheerfully  and  with  mani- 

211 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


fest  approbation  under  the  witty  Robinson, 
he  has  forged  his  own  gyves,  and  in  due 
time,  victim  of  an  artificial  duty,  must  sit 
and  sit,  without  remonstrance  or  revolt,  un- 
der the  inexorable  Jenkins,  who  never  has 
anything  to  say,  and  never  knows  when  to 
sit  down.  Slavery  was  not  only  bad  for 
the  slave,  but  demoralizing  for  the  slave- 
holder. It  is  so  in  some  degree  with  after- 
dinner  speaking.  It  is  a  serious  responsi- 
bility that  each  of  us  takes  when  he  sits 
consentingly  under  an  after-dinner  speaker, 
since  we  not  only  weaken  our  own  powers 
of  resistance,  but  we  help  on  the  abnormal 
toughening  of  his.  Our  safety  and  his  lie 
in  the  strength  of  our  resolution  to  nip  him 
in  the  bud.  We  should  sit  on  him,  not  un- 
der him.  We  must  crush  him  while  he  is 
still  young  and  tender,  that  in  his  age  his 
prolixity  may  not  overwhelm  us,  nor  his 
ill-advised  levity  bring  reproaches  upon 
himself. 


XV 

COUSIN  ANTHONY'S  AD- 
DRESS TO  THE  TRAINED 
NURSES 


COUSIN  ANTHONY'S  AD- 
DRESS  TO  THE  TRAINED 
NURSES. 

|OULD  you  care  to  read  what 
Cousin  Anthony  said  to  the 
trained  nurses?  How  he  came 
to  be  permitted  to  address 
them  I  do  not  know,  nor  yet 
how  he  ventured  to  undertake  such  an 
office;  but  he  did  do  it,  for  a  newspaper 
said  so,  and  reported  his  deliverance  at 
such  length  and  with  such  an  appearance 
of  accuracy,  that  I  cut  the  report  out. 
Everybody  is  interested  in  trained  nurses, 
and  everybody  likes  them,  and  there  may 
be  some  readers  who  have  followed  Cousin 
Anthony's  meditations  on  other  subjects, 
who  will  care  to  trace  the  divagations  of 
his  intellectuals  under  the  stimulus  of  an 
unusual  inspiration.  So  here  is  his  address 
as  the  newspaper  gave  it :— * 
215 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


*'  One  of  the  managers*  of  St.  Hippo- 
crates Hospital,  to  whom  I  divulged  my 
intention  of  speaking  to  you  to  -  night, 
tried  hard  to  turn  me  from  that  pur- 
pose, reminding  me  of  vvliat,  of  course,  I 
knew,  that  there  was  no  information  or  in- 
struction which  it  was  in  my  power  to 
give,  which  could  be  edifying  to  so  accom- 
plished a  band  of  women  as  a  class  of  trained 
nurses  about  to  graduate,  or  in  any  way 
useful  to  them  in  their  business.  But  that, 
while  of  course  it  is  indisputably  obvious, 
seemed  to  me  to  have  only  this  bearing 
upon  the  case,  that  it  was  a  particularly 
graceful  compliment  to  pay  to  the  class  of 
trained  nurses  whom  I  have  the  honor  to 
address,  that  a  person  totally  unequipped 
with  technical  information  should  have 
been  permitted  to  address  them.  In  other 
years,  if  I  have  been  rightly  informed,  it 
has  been  the  custom  to  provide  such  vale- 
dictory remarks  to  the  graduating  nurses  as 
should  tend  to  impress  upon  their  mem- 
ories the  lessons  which  they  had  been 
taught,  and  perhaps  add  some  valuable  new 
*  I  suspect  it  was  Mrs.  Anthony. 
2l6 


Cousin  Anthony  to  Trained  Nurses 

ideas  to  their  professional  equipment.  But 
with  this  class  it  seems  to  be  different.  It 
is  conceded  that  they  have  learned  the  busi- 
ness of  nursing  the  sick  so  thoroughly  that 
no  useful  last  words  about  it  are  necessary. 
No  one  needs  to  remind  them  for  the  last 
time  not  to  set  the  baby  on  the  stove  while 
they  are  heating  the  milk,  not  to  confuse 
quinine  with  morphine,  and  not  to  hold 
the  cork  between  their  teeth  while  they 
are  pouring  the  medicine  out  of  the  bottle. 
Very  little  remains  to  be  done  here  for  the 
members  of  this  class.  To  felicitate  them 
upon  their  calling,  to  convey  to  them  the 
expression  of  a  sympathetic  admiration  for 
their  fortitude  and  their  accomplishments 
— that  is  all,  except  finally  to  wish  them 
good  luck. 

"Such  last  messages  as  these  almost 
speak  themselves.  The  approval  of  trained 
nurses  is  emphatic,  spontaneous,  and  unan- 
imous. Eli  Whitney — I  believe  it  was  Eli 
Whitney  —  invented  the  cotton  gin,  and 
society  thinks  well  of  him.  Watt  in- 
vented the  steam  locomotive,  and  Fulton 
the  steamboat,  and  Morse  the  telegraph, 
217 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


and  Bell  the  telephone,  and  society  is  grate- 
ful to  them  all.  Who  invented  the  trained 
nurse  I  have  never  heard,  but  society's 
gratitude  to  that  person  is  intensified  by  an 
enthusiasm  which  none  of  those  other  in- 
ventors could  excite.  Doctors  have  their 
merits,  but  you  know  how  it  is  about  doc- 
tors. In  the  first  place  there  are  doctors 
and  doctors,  and  the  conditions  of  doctor- 
ing are  such  that  implicit  faith  in  any  one 
of  them  necessarily  implies  profound  dis- 
trust of  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  others. 
There  are  different  schools  of  doctors,  the 
primary  tenet  of  each  of  which  is  that  all 
the  doctors  of  all  the  other  schools  are  no 
good  and  ought  to  be  abolished  by  law.  It 
is  impossible  to  secure  any  unanimity  of 
opinion  about  doctors  even  among  them- 
selves. A  good  many  people  who  happen 
to  be  enjoying  good  health  go  so  far  as  to 
adopt  it  as  a  general  principle  that  it  is 
safest  not  to  have  dealings  with  doctors  at 
all,  but  to  use  on  occasion  such  medicines 
as  can  be  bought  ready-made  and  are  rec- 
ommended in  the  columns  of  some  un- 
biassed and  reliable  newspaper.  Indeed, 
218 


Cousin  Anthony  to  Trained  Nurses 


there  is  such  diversity  of  opinion  about 
doctors,  that  if  there  is  any  ground  upon 
which  trained  nurses  would  seem  to  most 
people  to  be  best  entitled  to  respectful  com- 
miseration, it  is  because  more  than  half  the 
time  they  are  directly  under  some  doctor's 
orders,  and  constrained  by  the  most  per- 
emptory obligations  to  do  exactly  what  he 
tells  them.  It  used  to  be  the  patient  M'ho 
had  to  do  as  the  doctor  said,  but  nowa- 
days it  is  the  trained  nurse,  and  I  am  not 
sure  that  there  is  any  particular  service  of 
hers  which  is  more  gratefully  esteemed 
than  that  which  she  renders  in  her  capaci- 
ty of  buffer  between  the  doctor  and  his  pa- 
tient. 

"  Yes,  the  doctor  is  oftentimes  disap- 
pointing. The  community  is  not  quite 
satisfied  with  him,  and  I  do  not  know  that 
it  ever  will  be,  for  it  expects  him  to  know 
very  nearly  as  much  as  God,  and  to  exer- 
cise very  much  the  same  sort  of  unerring 
omnipotence;  and,  after  all,  that  is  a  good 
deal  to  expect  of  even  a  carefully  educated 
physician. 

"  But  about  the  trained  nurse  there  is 
219 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


really  no  difference  of  opinion  at  all.  If  a 
family  nowadays  has  something  the  matter 
with  it,  it  sends  for  the  doctor,  for  doctors 
will  do  for  an  ordinary  case.  But  if  its 
difficulties  really  become  serious  it  sends 
for  a  trained  nurse,  and  then  if  they  don't 
mend,  for  another,  and  if  the  case  is  des- 
perate it  often  gets  as  many  as  three ;  so 
that  it  is  common  practice  to  measure  the 
dimensions  of  the  pickle  which  a  modern 
family  may  happen  to  be  in  by  the  number 
of  trained  nurses  it  takes  to  get  them  out 
of  it. 

"  I  wish  there  was  anything  about  nurs- 
ing I  could  hope  to  tell  you,  that  you  do 
not  know  already,  though  that,  as  I  have 
explained,  is  the  particular  thing  that  I  was 
selected  not  to  do.  There  is  one  point 
that  is  best  gathered  from  the  outside,  which 
it  is  just  ix)ssible  may  have  escaped  you. 
When  you  are  walking  along  the  street  if 
you  happen  to  notice  a  glass  jar  of  milk 
and  a  tin  cup  on  a  second  story  window- 
sill  of  a  house,  you  need  not  be  surprised 
to  learn,  if  you  inquire,  that  a  new  citizen 
has  come  to  live  in  that  street  and  that  that 


Cousin  Anthony  to  Trained  Nurses 

is  the  particular  house  where  he  is  putting 
up.  But  inferences  based  upon  such  obser- 
vations as  this  are  not  even  measurably 
reliable  unless  the  house  looks  as  if  it  had 
one  family  in  it,  and  a  cellar  under  it ;  for 
if  it  is  an  apartment  -  house  or  a  lodging- 
house,  such  an  appearance  as  I  have  not- 
ed may  signify  nothing  more  than  some 
bachelor's  housekeeping. 

**  I  think  I  should  neglect  an  obvious 
duty  if  I  omitted  to  improve  such  an  oc- 
casion as  this  by  making  a  few  deprecat- 
ive suggestions  to  you  relative  to  the  mat- 
ter of  marriage.  Of  course  a  good  many 
of  you,  most  of  you,  no  doubt  (for  all  that 
you  know  better),  will  marry  sooner  or 
later,  and  the  choice  being  limited,  will 
marry  a  man.  Now,  it  is  so  well  under- 
stood and  so  practically  recognized  in 
these  times  that  women  are  the  superior 
beings  and  know  a  lot  more  than  men 
about  everything,  that  for  any  man  to 
marry  any  woman  has  come  to  be  a  serious 
business  for  him,  and  one  that  he  under- 
takes with  misgivings  and  immense  trepida- 
tion.    But  if  it  is  fit  to  scare  a  man  out  of 

221 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


all  conceit  with  himself  to  marry  a  woman 
of  ordinary  accomplishments,  just  think 
what  it  must  be  to  marry  a  woman  with 
the  education  of  a  trained  nurse  !  You 
must  contrive  somehow  that  your  excep- 
tional knowledge  and  experience  shall  give 
you  exceptional  forbearance.  Of  course 
you  have  seen  the  folly  of  men  in  general. 
Your  daily  experience  with  doctors  alone, 
both  heretofore  and  in  prospect,  will  have 
taught  you  to  appreciate  the  inevitable 
disparity  between  what  men  think  they 
know  and  what  they  really  do  know. 
You  cannot  reasonably  expect  that  the 
particular  men  whom  you  may  marry  will 
be  materially  different  from  the  great  mass 
of  their  brethren.  You  must  consider, 
therefore,  what  it  will  be  for  them  to  spend 
their  lives  in  daily  companionship  with  an 
intelligence  superior  to  theirs  not  only  by 
the  accident  of  sex,  but  by  long  discipline 
and  cultivation  besides.  Be  very  patient 
with  those  men.  Their  doom  is  enviable 
in  all  the  important  particulars,  and  their 
felicity  is  almost  sure  to  be  great,  but 
while  I  do  not  counsel  you  to  make  really 

222 


Cousin  Anthony  to  Trained  Nurses 

important  concessions  to  their  ignorance, 
their  lot  will  be  all  the  sunnier  if  you  deal 
gently  with  their  errors  and  humor  their 
mistakes.  If  you  make  the  most  of  your 
superiority  you  may  be  more  instructive, 
but  if  you  make  the  least  of  it  they  and 
you  both  will  probably  have  more  fun. 

'*  Among  tolerably  wise  and  decent  peo- 
ple everywhere  I  hear  one  very  common 
complaint.  It  is  that  they  are  too  much 
taken  up  with  their  own  concerns  and  do 
not  do  enough  for  other  people.  The  com- 
plaint is  not  merely  sentimental,  but  is  the 
expression  of  their  conviction,  that  they  are 
missing  something  that  they  ought  to  have. 
Human  happiness  is  geared  to  such  condi- 
tions that  if  we  are  to  have  any  considerable 
share  of  it  we  have  got  to  get  it  at  second 
hand.  We  cannot  often  reach  out  ourselves 
and  grab  a  great  hunk  of  it.  We  have  to 
get  it  through  someone  else.  We  may  get 
ready  ever  so  costly  and  elaborate  an  appar- 
atus, and  expect  it  to  make  to  order  for  us 
all  the  happiness  we  can  use,  but  the  odds 
are  that  the  machine  won't  work.  There 
is  no  royal  road  to  happiness,  any  more 
223 


Cousin  Anthony  and  I 


than  there  is  to  learning.  The  conditions 
are  pretty  much  alike  for  all  applicants,  and 
each  of  us  must  lay  in  his  own  store  by 
what  means  he  can.  But  the  nearest  thing 
to  a  general  rule  for  getting  happiness  is  to 
help  other  people.  I  suppose  the  reason  is 
that  the  most  important  of  the  things  which 
are  at  the  bottom  of  happiness  is  love,  and 
that  when  we  help  our  fellows  we  give  them, 
for  the  time  at  least,  a  certain  measure  of 
love  out  of  our  hearts.  I  take  it  to  be  a 
great  felicity  of  your  vocation  that  the  prac- 
tice of  it  is  one  long  exercise  of  helpfulness, 
direct,  immediate,  efficacious.  Good  works 
form  good  characters  just  as  evil  deeds 
form  bad.  Good  works  grow  on  the  doer 
of  them,  and  become  habitual  just  as  bad 
ones  do.  It  seems  to  me  impossible  that  men 
or  women  should  do  for  suffering  human 
creatures  what  you  have  learned  to  do  and 
will  do  daily,  without  learning  to  love  hu- 
manity and  without  tasting  the  happiness 
that  springs  from  such  love  and  forming  the 
sort  of  character  that  grows  on  such  food. 
There  is  a  great  charm  to  me  about  the  hu- 
man arm,  straight,  strong,  flexible,  ridged 
224 


Cousm  Anthony  to  Trained  Nurses 

with  ready  muscles  and  with  that  wonder- 
fully shifty  contrivance,  the  human  hand, 
at  the  end  of  it.  And  I  think  the  human 
arm  is  never  so  handsome  and  so  admirable 
as  when  it  comes  between  the  sufferer  and 
the  blow,  or  reaches  down,  bare  and  com- 
petent, to  drag  up  some  downcast  creature 
out  of  the  mire  into  which  he  has  fallen. 
The  trained  nurse  is  one  of  the  strong  arms 
of  our  modern  society.  The  very  proper- 
ties of  her  calling  are  to  sustain  the  help- 
less, to  draw  up  the  suffering  out  of  their 
mire  of  disease.  There  is  no  calling  more 
honorable,  and  there  are  very  few  more 
honored. 

"  The  trained  nurse  is  a  brick.  We  are 
all  her  friends,  all  her  admirers,  all  her 
debtors.  All  of  us,  as  we  see  her  here  to- 
night, say  God  bless  her  and  send  her  every 
happiness  and  success. ' ' 


225 


N  Mr.  E.  S.  Martin's 
essays  ["  Windfalls  of 
Observation."  i2mo, 
$1.25]  there  is  hardly 
anywhere  a  thought  of 
learning  that  comes 
not  out  of  his  individual  experience. 
His  humor  reads  like  that  of  a  man 
to  whom  things  happened  just  as 
they  seem  to  in  his  comments  ;  and 
sympathy  rises  as  one  reads  because 
one  feels  the  memory  or  the  antici- 
pation of  similar  things.  There 
is,  of  course,  some  exaggeration. 
Horses  are  not  really  such  quadru- 
pedal embodiments  of  perversity  as 
Mr.  Martin  would  have  us  believe. 
But   there   are    moments   even    in 

_  ^.        the  life  of  the  most  de- 

From  the  .  j    u  . 

„       V     fc   voted    horseman   when 

in  the  words  of  a  writer 
who  doubtless  has  a  preference  for 
solid  ground.  "A  Poet  and  Not 
Ashamed "  may  be  deemed  an 
eccentric  essay.  Nevertheless,  it 
is  a  wise  as  well  as  a  witty  study 
on  the  outward  aspect  of  a  great 
poet.  The  individual,  the  personal 
equation  —  these  are  the  whole  se- 
cret of  Mr.  Martin's  skill  as  an 
essayist.  He  may  be  learned,  but 
he  does  not  need  to  be.  He  does 
what   has   not    been   done    before. 


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